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VISIOIS AID YOICES 



JAMES STAUNTON BABCOCK 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



AUTHOR 




HARTFORD: 

PUBLISHED BY EDWIN HUNT 
NEW YORK: BAKER AND SCRIBNER. 
1849. 



Y 






\ 



'k^'^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1849, 

BY MARY ANN H. BABCOCK, 
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut. 



PRESS OF 

CASE, TIFFANY & CO., 

HARTFORD, CONN. 



CONTENTS. 



Pase. 

Biographical Sketch, ...... 1 

Songs and Lyrics, 39 

Winifreda, 39 

Mary, 41 

Spring Song, 43 

Spring Song 45 

The Young Shepherd's Song, .... 47 

The Parting, 49 

That Last Sweet Song, 51 

Tliose Looks and Tears, 53 

Song on tlie Prairie, 56 

To a Young Girl playing in an Arbor, . . 58 

Song — The Sweet blue clover, ... 60 

Song— The Stars are in the sky, love, . . 6J 

Regret, 63 

Consolation, 65 

Song — Consoleraent, 66 

To 68 

Lament, 71 

O be my grave on the Mountain's breast, . . 73 

Ode to Capt. Nathan Hale, .... 75 



IV CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Ode to Sleep, . .77 

Strawberry Song of Indian Damgels, . . 81 

Road Song of Earth's Travelers, . . .83 

Songs of the Laborers, . . . c . 85 

The Ploughman's Song, . . . . .85 

Song of the Haymakers, ..... 87 

Song of the Reapers, . . . . . .91 

Corn Husker's Song, 92 

The Miller's Song, 94 

Complaint and Response, .... 97 

Idleness, 98 

Hidden Grief, 99 

A Voice to the Young, 100 

Faith, 103 

Charity, . . . . . . . . .106 

Kindness, 108 

Love, 110 

Freedom, 112 

Death of the First Born, 115 

Destruction of Pharaoh's Host, . . . 115 

Descriptive and Meditative Poems. 

Evening voices of Autumn, . . . .119 

To a Flower in a Solitary Place, . . . 122 

The Deserted Dwelling, 124 

To an Ottawa Girl, 128 

Niagara, 131 

Numa and Egeria, 133 



CONTENTS. T 

Page. 

Juliet— Voice of a Spirit 136 

To the Evening Star, 138 

The Spirit's Identity, 142 

The Old Year and the New, .... 144 

Musings, 147 

The Indian Summer, 150 

The West Wind, 151 

To Singing, 154 

To the Piping Frogs, 156 

Willimantic Water, 160 

The Clouds, 163 

The Harvest Moon, 166 

The Snow Bird, 168 

The Fairies' Migration, 170 

An Indian Summer Day, 172 

New Year's Morning,' 176 

Trees 178 

The Lilies of the Field 182 

To the Whippowill, 184 

To a group of Children, 186 

Unheard Music, • • .188 

Light, 191 

Stanzas, 192 

To a Sinking Ship, 193 

Solitary Musings, 194 

To my Soul, 196 

Children in Heaven, 168 



VI 



CONTENTS 



Paoe. 

Seeking a Name, 200 

Time and Tide, 203 

Sonnets. 

Reveries, ....... 206 

Spring, — Evening, . . . . . 207 

Spring, — Morning, .... . 208 

Q,uestionings, 209 

Fate of the Gifted, 211 

Fragments 212 

To my Verses, 214 

L'Envoi, . . . • . . . . .215 

Notes, . 217 

PHiLosopmcAL Fragments, 223 



ERRATA. 



Page 82, line 3 
" 192, " 10 
" 116, " 11 
" 193, " 2 



For dust read dusk. 

" need " meed. 

" ijeanings read yeardings. 

" Mid read Mad. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR. 



James Staunton Babcock, was born in South 
Coventry, Connecticut, Nov. 7th, 1815. From his 
earliest years he discovered a serious and thought- 
ful turn, and an eager thirst for knowledge. His 
parents, who were plain but exemplary .persons, 
inspired him both by precept and example with the 
principles of genuine morality. His father's means 
and occupation as a farmer, did not permit him to give 
an education to his son of that extent and elegance 
which his genius seemed to demand. Necessity com- 
pelled the young man to learn the occupation of his 
parents, and his opportunities for reading were few 
and brief; nor was there, for his encouragement, a 
single learned or literary person in the circle of his 
acquaintance. The instinct of his nature, however, 
impelled him to improve to the utmost every trifling 
advantage ; nor did he suffer any book, paper, or 
pamphlet that accident threw in his way, to leave his 
hands without a thorough perusal. Even almanacs 
and old newspapers were laid by to be perused at the 
first respite from toil ; and once read, so excellent 
2 



a BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

was his memory, they were his in substance, and a 
great part often in the very words. He indulged but 
seldom in the common recreations of his equals, and 
then only in such games as require manly vigor and 
skill, displaying in these an uncommon power and 
aptitude ; but after a few efforts, as if satisfied with 
having shown his ability and companionable spirit, 
he would retire abruptly, and fall to reading, or 
meditation. 

Through the serious and always weighty substance 
of his thoughts, there gleamed a vein of the finest and 
most humane humor, which, to those who could ap- 
preciate him, gave his conversation an uncommon 
charm. ' His turn toward wit and humor discovered 
itself in his choice of reading, which showed a pref- 
erence for the marvellous, the humorous, and the 
uncommon. At the age of twelve years he had 
already collected and sewed into a volume, an hun- 
dred old almanacs, all of different dates, and had 
filled several large scrap books with curious and val- 
uable pieces of prose and verse. 

His inclinations led him early to history, and in 
this his acquisitions were great and remarkable. 
They evinced a breadth of apprehension and a sym- 
pathy with humanity, that foreshowed the philoso- 
pher and philanthropist of future years. 

In the discussion of general topics of morality, 
there were few who equalled him. Even at the age 
of twelve years, his reasonings were clear, concise 
and logical, and when interested and excited, even 



OF THE AUTHOR. 3 

forcible and eloquent. His love of truth never suf- 
fered him to indulge an instant in a sophistry, nor 
could any one detect the same more readily in others. 
Amiability and a high self-respect, prevented his 
indulging in satire, which nevertheless he thoroughly 
understood, and could employ, if driven to it, with 
surprising power. 

Very early in life, he suffered a severe injury by 
the passage of the wheels of a wagon over his head and 
body, of which he continued to suffer the consequen- 
ces until his twenty-second year. The features of his 
face were crushed, and he was taken up to all ap- 
pearance dead. This was in his second year ; but 
it was the will of providence that his life should be 
spared, and himself become an example of virtue? 
and a consolation to all who knew and could revere 
his character. His mental precocity was in nothing 
more remarkable than in his perfect recollection of 
the circumstances of this accident. 

In his fifteenth year, the death of his father, and the 
dependence of a mother and her three younger chil- 
dren, threw upon him the responsibilities of a man ; nor 
did he fail to meet the duties of this new and difficult 
position with a manly and serious spirit. Though 
young in years he was strong in mind. Without 
procrastination or despondency, he engaged in every 
duty with a surprising cheerfulness, and accomplished 
astonishing tasks. By diligence, providence, and 
care, he not only supported himself and his mother's 
family, but within three years' time, repaired the 



4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

homestead at a cost of one hundred dollars, and paid 
a debt of a thousand dollars ; leaving the family and 
farm clear of debts and incumbrances. For a youth 
not yet twenty, without experience of the world, and 
in narrow circumstances, such evidence of forecast, 
practical skill and prudence, is certainly of most rare 
occurrence. 

In the eighteenth year of his age, having now 
placed himself and his family in a situation of com- 
parative ease, he was invited by an uncle, Mr. Chris- 
topher G. Babcock, to take the situation of a clerk in 
his store, in Franklin County, Virginia. Being on 
a journey of business, this gentleman fell ill of small 
pox. On hearing of his uncle's condition, without a 
moment's delay, the nephew mounted his horse, and 
rode oiF at night, and in the course of one day's jour- 
ney swam two rivers, one of them at a perilous rapid, 
and, disregarding the danger of contagion, and the 
warnings of the attendants, who represented to him 
the uselessness of exposing his life in the service of 
one for whom there was no hope, he gave himself en- 
tirely to the care of his uncle. To see one whom he 
loved and respected perish alone among strangers, 
was more than his generous nature could bear. He 
remained by his bed-side to the last, and rendered all 
the services demanded in such an extremity. The 
natural consequences followed this act of devotion. 
He fell violently ill of small pox. His constitution 
had not been prepared against the disease by vacci- 
nation, and again the independence of his character 



OF THE AUTHOR. 5 

showed itself. He prescribed for himself, and with 
the aid of a faithful nurse, went safely through a vio- 
lent attack without the help of a physician. 

Soon after this accident he returned to the North, 
and prepared himself to enter college. Being already 
master of the studies of a common education, mature 
in intellect, and disciplined to habits of industry, Mr. 
Babcock acquired in less than a year, an amount of 
knowledge of the classics and mathematics which less 
vigorous intellects would be satisfied to have gained 
in three or four years. He entered the Sophomore 
class of Yale College, in the fall of 1837. In Greek 
he had no superior, and in all other studies of the 
course he discovered great aptitude and discipline of 
intellect. College honors were no temptation to his 
elevated and truly ambitious spirit, and his leisure 
was consequently devoted to an extended and thorough 
course of reading, which he continued in after years, 
and made to include all the best authors in English, 
Greek and Latin. His reading was immense and 
extraordinary. A student more thoroughly acquainted 
with English letters has probably never graduated at 
that University. 

Soon after graduating, viz. in the fall of 1840, he 
left home for the South, chiefly with a view of bene- 
fiting his health, already seriously impaired by study. 
He took up his residence in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 
and continued there about two years and a half as the 
teacher of a select school. Here, besides gaining an 
extended knowledge of the practical world, which 
2* 



6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

such an occupation in such a locality is sure to bring, 
and securing the esteem and liberal patronage of many 
friends, it is believed that his residence here was 
highly favorable to his intellectual and moral devel- 
opment. The freedom and unreserve characteristic 
of southern society, with the intervals of leisure which 
separate their daily tasks, unlike the continuous 
industry of New England, and which is typified by 
the wide uncultivated spaces separating and sur- 
rounding each planter's home, are specially congen- 
ial to the growth of a reflective and independent spirit ; 
and from what appears in the productions of his mind 
at this period, it is evident that these advantages were 
not lost. Just before he left Tuscaloosa, he delivered 
a course of lectures connected with the subject of 
education, which elicited the surprise and admiration 
of all who heard them. These lectures were entitled 
" Truth Searching;" and the principal topics embra- 
ced in them were — the nature of Truth ; the conditions 
and method of seeking it ; and the various hindrances 
which lie in the way of its attainment. This grand 
and comprehensive field was surveyed from a philo- 
sophic or reflective point of view, and the whole was 
evidently a transcript from his own intellectual expe- 
rience. Being hastily written in a somewhat loose 
and unflnished style, adapted to a popular audience, 
they were deemed by him unworthy of publication, 
or even of revision. 

He returned home to New England in June, 1843, 
with his health greatly improved, and with the devo- 



OF THE AUTHOR. 7 

tion of a lover returning to the object of his passion, 
threw himself anew into his favorite studies. After 
spending a few months among his friends at Coven- 
try, he went to New Haven to continue the course of 
study he had marked out for himself, and for which 
only a university could supply the means. In con- 
nexion with general literature and the modern lan- 
guages, he took up also the studies of Law and Med- 
icine, not, as he said, with a view of practicing either, 
but because he considered a knowledge of them ne- 
cessary to a perfect education. His views of a pro- 
fessional life were anything but mercenary or even 
common. Knowledge to him was truly an end rather 
than a means ; and he could hardly tolerate the idea of 
pursuing any branch of science for the sake of get- 
ting a livelihood. He once expressed to a friend his 
regret that there were in this country no genuine 
scholars like Coleridge, who pursued thought as a 
profession, in that wide circle including science, lit- 
erature, philosophy and theology. His own compre- 
hensive mental tendencies evidently showed that 
nothing short of this could satisfy the demands of his 
own mind. There was one department, however, of 
this circle, if it be not in truth its center, which more 
and more attracted him by its lofty and infinite rela- 
tions, and which, had life been granted him, would 
doubtless have proved itself practically as the calling 
of his life, — that of Divinity. 

But the mind which thus essayed the infinite ascent 
before it, had not estimated the strength of its finite 



8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

and already exhausted ally. His body, though nat' 
urally strong and robust, could not long hold out under 
the demands of such a spirit ; and he was obliged, 
after residing about eighteen months in New Haven, 
to return home and place himself under the care of a 
physician. Though seemingly aware of the nature 
and cause of his physical failure, and notwithstanding 
the serious and repeated remonstrances of his friends, 
he could not be induced utterly to abandon his intel- 
lectual pursuits, since, as he said, they had become a 
necessary element of his life, and that he must not at 
once and entirely forego them, even to prolong the 
life of his body. With that insatiable craving for 
truth which pursued him as a passion, he persisted 
thus until the fall of 1845, when his disease had so far 
prevailed over his mind, that the sight of a book, or 
hearing one read, would almost distract him. After 
trying in vain the effects of a short residence among 
some friends near the sea shore in Westerly, R. I., he 
returned home, to forget his own condition in perform- 
ing the last offices of affection to a beloved parent. 
His mother, whose strong mental character and ap- 
preciating fondness had, perhaps more than all other 
influences, fostered his own intellectual growth, died 
in December of this year, after a long and painful ill- 
ness. This event, though not unexpected, quite over- 
come him in his enfeebled state, and relaxed the few 
remaining ties that fettered his spirit to the earth. 
He had previously lost by death two sisters ; one only 



OF THE AUTHOR. 9 

about six months before, the other during his residence 
at the South. 

During this winter he followed in a limited way the 
treatment of water-cure, in which he professed much 
faith ; and the following summer, by the advice of 
friends, he went to Brattleboro, Vt., and placed him- 
self for three months under the medical care of Dr. 
Wesselhoeft, but without essential benefit. The fine 
autumnal weather after his return seemed to revive 
and rally his failing strength ; and late in October he 
left home for the last time, in company with his sister, 
to visit some friends in Duchess and Columbia Coun- 
ties, N. Y. This journey and absence, which occu- 
pied about a month, gave him much pleasure and but 
little fatigue. But after his return home, and with 
the approach of winter, the disease, which had long 
lain concealed under the form of a nervous dyspepsia, 
now betrayed itself as consumption, by a settled cough 
and other unmistakable symptoms of that insidious 
and fatal malady. 

He continued to fail rapidly till the thirteenth of 
April, 1847, at about nine in the morning, when he 
expired — gently and almost imperceptibly, as if fall- 
iiag asleep ; 

" Calmly as to a night's repose, like flowers at set of sun." 

His reason and consciousness were continued per- 
fectly to the last, and his parting words, addressed to 
his brother and only surviving sister, were of heaven 
and eternal things. His patience, cheerfulness, and 



10 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Christian resignation, throughout his long and severe 
sufferings were unbroken, and his only regret on 
leaving the world was that he might not live to com- 
plete one or two of the many plans he had devised 
and begun for the good of mankind. 

This brief biographical outline, it is felt, affords a 
very imperfect idea of the man whose earthly life and 
history was thus prematurely terminated. The true 
biography of persons like the subject of this sketch is 
unfolded within, and recorded in the thoughts, feel- 
ings and experiences of the mind, rather than in out- 
ward events. What Mr. Babcock was in his moral 
and social character, is known to the few hearts that 
were permitted to hold daily and intimate intercourse 
with him ; and the veil which guards his memory in 
these — the best shrine of departed worth — is too sacred 
to be here withdrawn. His disposition was marked 
by that retiring modesty and reserve peculiar to a 
delicate and sensitive mind, so that he rarely unfolded 
himself except to his most intimate friends. This, 
united as it was with a rare greatness and independ- 
ence of spirit which held aloof all alien spirits, ren- 
dered his character one that was little understood out 
of his own immediate circle. 

What he was as a scholar and thinker he did not 
live to demonstrate to the world. But as the nature 
of plants and animals may be learned from their 
innate tendencies as well as from their completed 
growth and history, so we may get some idea of what 



OF THE AUTHOR. 11 

Mr. B. would have been in this respect from his wide 
intellectual tendencies, and from what he aimed to do 
rather than what he actually accomplished. 

Among other things, he contemplated and had in- 
deed commenced the work of a life-time ; viz. the 
preparation of a complete Etymological Dictionary. 
This was to contain, first, the primitive meaning of 
every word in the English language, with the origin- 
al foreign root whence it was derived ; secondly, its 
various secondary meanings with the history and 
mode of transition as far as could be ascertained; 
thirdly, all the synonyms of the language etymological- 
ly and historically traced, with the various shades of 
meaning accurately distinguished and illustrated by 
examples from classic authors. 

This vast undertaking, had he lived to complete it 
according to his original design, would have given to 
the world a work immensely needed and of incalcu- 
lable value ; and few men perhaps have lived, on the 
whole better qualified to undertake and accomplish it. 
As a Greek and Latin scholar he had few if any su- 
periors. Besides the English, (ancient and modei'n,) 
he was more or less thoroughly acquainted with the 
Saxon, Celtic, Gaelic, German, Italian, Danish, Swe- 
dish, Spanish and Hebrew languages. He had also 
commenced and made some progress in the Syriac, 
Arabic, Chaldaic and Chinese. His habits of study 
and mental application, as may be inferred, were un- 
commonly rigid. Self-reliance, devotion and indom- 
itable perseverance were not less conspicuous in his 



12 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

intellectual than his moral character, and nothing 
could hold him back from any mental pursuit till its 
end was attained. These qualities, so essential yet 
perilous to the scholar who would accomplish aught 
worthy of himself and his age, were, in one sense, 
the prime cause of his premature death : a sad and 
significant fact, yet not the first in the history of 
mind, which it were well to ponder. 

What Mr. Babcock was as a poet may be learned 
from the productions herewith published. With re- 
gard to these however, it is important to consider that 
they exhibit only one aspect of his mind, and that an 
imperfect one. Most of them were hastily thrown 
off, and left without that revision which a maturer 
judgment and a more prudent regard for personal 
fame would have supplied. They are given to the 
public by his own dying and reluctant consent, and 
in accordance with the wishes of his few surviving 
friends, as fragmentary and broken symbols of a 
mind whose yearnings after the beautiful and the 
true, as here recorded, prevailed only by bursting the 
golden vase and snapping the silver cord, which with- 
held the idea from the reality. 

It is perhaps impossible to gather from anything 
which remains of Mr. B's writings, a perfectly cor- 
rect estimate of his intellectual character. His mind 
was of that intuitive and spontaneous order which 
shows itself most truly when least conscious of effort 
and premeditation ; when drawn out occasionally, in 
the freedom of social and unrestrained conversation. 



OF THE AUTHOR. 13 

His conversationa] powers were indeed remarkable, 
engaging all who had sympathy enough to elicit 
them, with the sweei, continuous and ever accumu- 
lating flow of his ideas. In this respect he might be 
compared, if the comparison would not seem auda- 
cious, with one of the most wonderful of modern ■ 
poets and thinkers, Coleridge, whom he strongly re- 
sembled in the cast and quality of his mind, and who 
next to Shakspeare was his favorite author. Like 
him he viewed all things through a spix'itual medium ; 
the reflection or emanation, the poet would say, of the 
spirit within, but quite as truly, perhaps, the real 
irradiation of the Spirit without, which only the spir- 
itual mind can discern. The ideal world with its in- 
spirations of love, of truth and of beauty, was not a 
remote realm separated from the here and now^, a 
play-ground of the fancy into which he occasionally 
sallied to relax and recreate his spirit, but the world 
in which he truly lived and wrought, and in whose 
light and air the actual world was evermore bathed. 
He had a sympathizing fondness for the writings of 
Mrs. Child, and her charming " Letters from New- 
York," read to him by his sister during the long win- 
ter evenings, a few weeks before his death, con- 
tributed gi'eatly to his delight. This delight was in- 
creased by his finding so close a correspondence be- 
tween many of the ideas here so beautifully express- 
ed and those he had habitually entertained and dis- 
coursed of to his friends, during the last three or four 
years of his life. 



14 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

His religious character corresponded with the ele- 
vation and comprehensiveness of his mind. Without 
publicly professing his religion, he yet manifested its 
reality in a life and spirit constantly actuated by strict 
Christian principles. His views on religious subjects 
were in the truest sense enlightened, comprehensive 
and liberal. He was too much of a thinker to be a 
dogmatist ; too catholic to accept or impose mere 
opinion for faith, or make the forms of the understand- 
ing the measure and test of piety in the heart ; at the 
same time too conscientious and wise to be indifferent 
to truth, least of all religious truth. He was an ar- 
dent admirer of the late Dr. Channing, and had read 
with pleasure and profit the writings of Swedenborg, 
but he could not be said to have adopted the faith of 
either. His love of the Scriptures was supreme over 
every thing derived therefrom, and grew with him to 
the last. These ' living oracles,' read without note 
or comment, were his constant companions during the 
last months of his life on earth, and by their guiding 
light, received in the simplicity of faith, it is believed, 
he saw and shaped his departure into the ' life ever- 
lasting.' 

One regret was expressed by him during his last 
illness, which, echoed as it is by all who know its 
import by realizing his worth, may be regarded as a 
voice of warning addressed to all sons of genius who 
may come after him. He lamented when it was too 
late the infatuation which led him in the ardor of his 
intellectual pursuits to disregard the premonitions of 



OF THE AUTHOR. 15 

disease, and to indulge the cravings of the mind at 
the expense of the body, and so of life. He feared 
he had done wrong by this fatal transgression of the 
divinely appointed laws of human existence ; a wrong, 
alas ! which he could not repair, and which the world 
is again left to mourn over. It is a wise and true 
faith that in every event some moral truth or lesson 
is conveyed. If the import and effect of this one more 
sacrifice to intellectual passion shall be to convince 
scholars of the duty of recognizing the existence and 
attending to the health of the hody, there will be fewer 
victims, and more masters, of the too often fatal gift of 
genius. 

The prose writings of Mr. Babcock, of which he 
left many scattered manuscripts, are mostly unfinished 
fragments or ' studies' of thought, on literary and 
philosophical subjects. A few of these are given at 
the end of the volume, as specimens merely of his 
habit and tone of thinking. 

In person Mr. Babcock was five feet ten inches in 
height, with a straight and well proportioned figure, 
a complexion naturally fair, but which in later years 
became 

' Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' 

He had light brown hair, grey hazel eyes deeply set, 
and at times intensely expressive, a slightly aquiline 
nose, and a remarkably high expansive forehead. 

His age at the time of his death was thirty-one 
years and five months — a life short indeed if meas- 
ured by the number of its days, but if measured by 



16 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

thoughts and feelings, and the progress of the mind 
in wisdom, he may truly be said to have lived long. 
He died in the maturity of his strength, just as he 
was about to reap the first fruits of his mild and assid- 
uously cultivated genius ; too early perhaps for fame, 
too early for the age he might have adorned, but not 
too early for the higher and serener career of pro- 
gress on which he has already entered. His harvest 
is not temporal but eternal. — Reqtiiescat in Pace. 



The one to whose fraternal fidelity the task of edit- 
ing this volume was intrusted, and from whose me- 
morials the foregoing sketch is compiled, before com- 
pleting the duty assigned him by his brother, has 
been called to follow him into the grave. The only 
surviving sister, the last of a family of seven, yet 
lingers behind ; and while waiting her turn to join 
those who have fallen one by one around her, sends 
forth this final memorial as a sacred duty which she 
owes to the beloved dead, and the discharge of which 
is almost the only tie that binds her to the living. A 
just regard for the claims of private affection seems 
to require some brief supplementary notice of the 
brother whose memory is thus sacredly and insepara- 
bly blended with that of the other. 

Charles Joseph Babcock was younger than his 
brother by three years, being born on the 2.5th of 
March, 1819 ; and remained without those advantages 
of a liberal education which the elder achieved. Of 



OF THE AUTHOR. 17 

an open, confiding and affectionate temper, he early 
attached himself, mind and heart, to the guiding 
genius of his brother, who as we have seen, from his 
fifteenth year supplied the place of father and guar- 
dian to the family. 

Under this genial influence, and encouraged if not 
inspired by his example, he soon manifested a strong 
passion for intellectual pursuits, and a decided poet- 
ical tendency. The character and extent of his read- 
ing, and the specimens of his poetry which remain, 
indicate a literary taste and capacity far beyond his 
meager educational advantages, and which, under 
more favorable auspices, might have ripened into re- 
sults worthy of a permanent fame. The cast of his 
mind was less purely intellectual than that of his 
brother ; and there is mingled in his effusions a deeper 
tone of practical sentiment — that quality which springs 
from subjective feeling rather than the objective and 
creative imagination. His character also was nat- 
urally more social, cheerful and communicative ; 
possessing more in common with his kind, and there- 
fore more easily read and appreciated. 

His brief history is soon told, and in many respects 
is almost the counterpart of that of his brother. 

During the most of his life he remained at home 
engaged in those manual employments which his sit- 
uation devolved upon him ; assiduously improving 
meanwhile the scanty opportunities of intellectual 
improvement which he could save or achieve from the 

daily routine of agricultural toil. He was thus in a 
3* 



18 BIOaRAPHICAL SKETCH 

truer sense even than his brother, self-educated, and 
that to a degree which many do not attain by passing 
through high literary institutions. For the last three 
or four years of his life he devoted his leisure seasons 
to the business of teaching : and he was engaged in 
this employment till a few weeks before his death. 
The loss of a mother, two sisters and his only brother, 
in quick and sad succession — the last bereavement 
the sorest of all — quickened, by the piercing grief 
they occasioned, the seeds of consumption already 
sown or hereditary in his system ; and he survived his 
brother but a little more than a year. He died at 
Westerly, R. L, on the 10th of July, 1848, aged 29. 

As none of the poetical productions of the younger 
would appear to much advantage beside those of the 
elder, a single specimen only is subjoined, which, both 
for its subject, and the earnest pathos and spontaneous 
simplicity of its style, may appropriately close this 
imperfect sketch. 

A LAMENT. 

BY C. J. BABCOCK. 

Thou art cold in death, my brother, 

My loved, my only one! 
And oh ! for me no other 

Can do as thou hast done. 

Known but to be beloved. 

Best loved where known the best ; 

A star of light that moved 
Serenely to its rest. 



OF THE AUTHOR. 19 

Thy soul seemed ever teeming 

With thoughts and truths sublime ; 
A light upon thee gleaming 

Beyond the fields of Time. 

When weary oft and fainting 

Along life's rugged road. 
Of higher things acquainting 

Thy words new strength bestowed. 

No more I'll know thy teaching, 

Nor hear thy thrilling voice. 
Which to my soul deep reaching 

Would make it all rejoice. 

Closed are those eyes forever, 

And stilled that faithful breast; 
But lovelier wast thou never 

Than now in lasting rest ! 

I know 'tis wrong to mourn thee. 

Thou heavenly spirit flown ! 
But oh ! I'm very lonely ; 

For thou wast all mine own. 

I stand and still keep gazing 

Upon that marble brow, 
Where mind its mansion raising. 

Shone forth — Where is it now ? 

In higher, purer dwelling, 

A glorious, heavenly sphere, 
Thee angels now are telling 

Truths all undreamed of here. 

One last fond look ere leaving, 

And the earth is o'er thee thrown ; 
'Tis done — and, deeply grieving, 

I feel I'm now alone ! 



20 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

The following Communication, written by a class- 
mate and intimate friend of Mr. Babcock, and his 
associate in Tuscaloosa, was published in the " Inde- 
pendent Monitor," a paper of that City, soon after his 
death. It is appended as supplying some interesting 
details and a partial filling up to the outline already 
given. 

To the Editor of the Monitor. 

You have doubtless, in common with others, been 
grieved to hear of the death of our mutual friend, James S. 
Baboock. During his residence of several years in Tus- 
caloosa, Mr. B. made many acquaintances and friends who 
would naturally wish to hear something of him since he 
left us. He died in his native town of Coventry, Conn., 
on the 13th day of last April, of the disease with which he 
had been long threatened. Supposing a residence in the 
south had so far removed a predisposition to consumption 
as to render his return home safe, he ventured to return 
in the year 1843, and it is probable he would have regained 
his health entirely, could he have denied himself all inter- 
course with books. In his senior year in college, (1840,) 
he had left his class, never, as was then supposed, to re- 
turn; but relaxation restored his health, and he was able 
to graduate that year. 

Our friend died a martyr to study, and to his intense 
intellectual habits. He was a purely intellectual charac- 
ter. All his pursuits and pleasures were mental. He had 
made greater attainments, acquired more various know- 



OF THE AUTHOR. 21 

ledge, and had a more insatiable thirst for knowledge than 
any young man I ever knew. He was an entire devotee 
to science and letters, an ardent student of history, and an 
especial enthusiast in the literature of the Germans. He 
was as much enamored of philosophy as of poetry ; some- 
times giving himself over to the fascinating power of the 
Muses, and sometimes entirely engrossed in the subtilties 
of metaphysics. 

Having been an intimate friend of the subject of this 
sketch, and knowing him to have been what has been 
described, and much more — for to these he added the best 
qualities of the heart — the writer hereof desires not only 
to be indulged in the partiality of a friend, but to pay a trib- 
ute to a somewhat rare character, an original thinker, and 
a man of genius. His inability to do justice to such a 
character will be overlooked by those friends and admirers 
of Mr. Babcock, who, fully appreciating, will understand 
the difficulty and dehcacy of the task. 

While he resided in our city, he passed but little of hie 
time in general society. He was of a peculiarly retiring 
and modest disposition, and though possessed of fine social 
qualities, he was fond of solitude. In those intimate cir- 
cles where best known and appreciated, not only in Tusca- 
loosa, but elsewhere, he was looked upon as a young man 
of much promise, and as destined to become eminent in the 
world. His friends were accustomed to speak of him not 
so much as a man of talents, or of extensive attainments, 
but as one peculiarly gifted and endowed with fine and 
rare qualities and powers, such as might fit him to shine 
in certain fields of hterary labor, hitherto new and unex- 



22 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

plored, at least, in our country — to attempt things untried. 
All wiU remember the astonishment he created by the lec- 
tures he delivered just on the eve of his departure from 
Tuscaloosa. But those who knew him more intimately 
were not surprised. It was a wonder that such a man 
could live contentedly, so long in one place, without devel- 
oping himseh". Many could not understand how a man of 
such rare mind, such power, such varied scholarship, so 
teeming with great and noble thoughts, and such glowing, 
burning words of eloquence, could pass quietly among us, 
from day to day, for years, with no ambitious endeavors to 
see his own superiority recognized. Our deceased friend 
felt and philosophized upon all this. As much as he valued 
true appreciation, he cared not for ephemeral fame. He 
often, with his intimate friends, spoke of himself as haviag 
ceased to be ambitious, and although but about thirty years 
of age when he died, he used to date the ambitious period 
of his life ten years previous, which itself is evidence that 
he had lived faster and to more purpose than most men, 
young or old, and had reflected much upon the hoUowness 
and insufHciency of earthly greatness. The lectures above 
named he delivered less from choice than a sense of duty, 
and to gratify a few friends. He chose a theme of the 
loftiest character — " Truth-seeking," and it will be re- 
membered that the lectures were characterized for their 
high moral tone, their pure, patriotic, and philanthropic 
sentiments. But splendid as the effort was, he was dissat- 
isfied with it. He had the highest standard for himself, 
and seemed to scorn all common efforts. You could not 
criticise him with more severity than he did himself, and 



OF THE AUTHOR. 23 

he had a very humble opinion of his own productions, and 
yet, with a sufficiently vivid impression of the arduous task 
of producing what may live after us, his highest aspiration, 
doubtless, was to become the author of such a creation, a 
poem. It is probable he was labor iug to fit himself for 
such a work, as the one great labor of his life. His career 
is now cut short, and his earthly work, for wise purposes, 
is finished. 

Mr. Babcock has left many fugitive pieces of poetry, 
some of which, exquisitely chaste and beautiful, have been 
published in the ' American Review,' since his death. 
The Editor, Mr. Colton, who was his intimate friend and 
class-mate, and who alas ! died also in the last month, pre- 
facing certain of his poems, himself a poet, speaks thus of 
his brother minstrel. 

" The quaUties of his poems are peculiar. They are 
built somewhat upon antique models, and seem also.to have 
been affected in a measure by the author's German stud- 
ies; but their eminent simplicity and truthfulness will 
comimand attention in an age whose poetry, like its social 
morality, is growing to be artificial, shallow, and false in 
sentiment." The following is one among the poems refer- 
red to : 



CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 

'Twas a wise faith, meet and touching, 
Of the manly Northern Mind, 

That, in Heaven, to little children, 
Is the fitting task assigned, 



24 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Still to scatter the young blossoms 

Over earth, by every thing, 
As the spring's returning season 

Conaes with beauteous visiting. 

Stooping light from flowery pathways, 
Strewed they hill and mead and plain — 

Soft and guileless, as the sun-cloud.s 
Shed their offerings of rain. 

And to all men toiling under. 

Welcome came their gifts of love ; 
For like birds from sky-ward singing, 

Brought they tidings from above^ 

Gladdening Earth with blessed foretaste, 

As her mortal hours went by, 
Of that Land where flowers, unfading. 

Spring and bloom immortally. 

Having been favored with the perusal of several letters 
from Mr. Babcock, written back to Tuscaloosa after he left 
us, and having obtained permission to make extracts there- 
from, I cheerfully embrace the opportunity of so doing. 
All his correspondence is exceedingly interesting, and far 
more worthy of publication, together with his various mis- 
cellaneous writings, than much which the partiality of 
friends too often gives to the public. Our friend had an 
eye for nature, and indeed for whatever is to be seen by 
the traveler, and, as will appear, he had a disposition to 
appropriate all he saw. To pass over a most entertain- 
ing epistle, describing his northward tour in the summer 
of 1843, via Mobile, New Orleans, the Mississippi, the 
lakes, and eastward, in which he descants of a thousand 



OF THE AUTHOR. 25 

things which ordinary tourists might have deemed unwor- 
thy of notice, the following is selected, written at home, 
Coventry, Conn., Oct. 14, 1843. It speaks for itself as the 
index of a busy mind, and an ever teeming imagination. 

" After a long delay I again take up the pen. I have just 
returned from a coasting voyage, not by water, but on the 
land, along the water, from Stonington, ' even unto' Bos- 
ton, and ' the region round about,' making my tour on 
horseback. My object was more for curiosity than visit- 
ing. I visited the sites of some of the scenes of Indian his- 
tory and warfare, the two Pequod forts, one the seat of 
their great Sachem Sassacus, the other where their power 
was crushed under Capt. Mason, both in the town of Gro- 
ton, where the Groton Monument was lately erected over 
the Mohegan Chief Uncas, and where the great fight with 
the Narragansetts took place. 

"I visited the Dighton Rock and the so called ' Old Mill,' 
the supposed remaining memorials ol" the Northmen, the 
first discoverers and colonists of our country. They are 
supposed, and the supposition rests on veritable ancient 
records in MSS., to have found the coast and made settle- 
ments on the lands of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, 
about the year one thousand, under Thornfins, which 
name, in Runic letters, I think, can be pretty clearly made 
out on the Dighton Rock. A skeleton in armor was dug 
up near Fall river a few years ago, evidently not an In- 
dian, which I was curious to see, but unfortunately it was 
burned up, with a whole museum of Indian and other an- 
tiquities, in the late fire at Fall River, (July 4th,) an irre- 
4 



26 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

parable loss to our country and history ! If you ever take 
the trouble to read the great work of the Copenhagen 
Antiquarian Society, ' American Antiquities in Danish 
and Latin,' by Prof Rafh, or the critique ol'it, ' the North- 
men in New England,' by J. T. Smith, or even a review 
of said work by Everett in the North American Review, 
you will see the subject discussed with great learning and 
logic. Longfellow, you know, has written a ballad, ' The 
Skeleton in Armor.' Mount Hope, King Philip's seat, is 
worth along journey to see. I went to Plymouth, the old 
Rock where our fathers and mothers planted their first 
footsteps. Part of the top of tliis rock has been broken off, 
and is now to be seen enclosed in a neat iron railing, with 
a green yard, in front of a newly erected building, ' Pil- 
grim's Hall,' the object of which structure is to commem- 
orate the event. Within are deposited various relics and 
memorials, a library of some antique and rare books, 
old pamphlets and papers, besides several portraits of 
some of the distinguished personages of those old days — 
the Winthrops, and Carvers, and Standishes, but above 
all, in the front hall is a very large painting, representing 
the Landing Scene — admirable ! The snowy base, dry, 
broken-limbed trees, the icicled rocks, the little boys and 
girls, well muffled and cloaked and mittened, yet drawn 
up and shivering and blowing their fingers ; the manly, 
heroic forms of Winthrop and Standish, holding confer- 
ence in the foreground with one or two Indians ; the half 
wondering, half shrinking gazes of the little ones at those 
strange forms, on a strange shore ; the lovely and frail 
female forms as they look on, leaning in pensive trust and 



OF THE AUTHOR. 27 

resignation on the sturdy shoulders of their protectors, 
seeming to utter in thought, through a!l hardships and 
dangers, where tliese are, there is home! But I can go 
no farther in describing what miglit task a connoisseur and 
ask a volume. I went into the Boston cemetery, Mount 
Auburn, worth almost all to be seen, save the Boston Mon- 
ument, which last is built of Quincy granite, fifty feet 
square at base, tapering gently to the top, two hundred 
and twenty feet ; a plain shaft !' as said Mr. Webster in 
his speech last June, and the way he brought out those 
two short simple words, is said to have been astonishing, 
electrifying, mightily sublime. At Cambridge I visited the 
Law and University libraries ; something above old Yale, 
and always will be so long as Boston spirit and wealth re- 
main proverbial. 

" I am now at home, dipping somewhat into German and 
reading Shaftsbury. I intend spending the winter in New 
Haven, studying general literature and the modern lan- 
guages. I should like Tuscaloosa better than any place 
in the United States I know of, take it all in all, but for one 
thing, the dearth of books." 



In a letter ii-om New Haven, dated January 17, 1843, he 
writes : " I have just arrived here and got settled, and shall 
remain three or four months, perhaps all next summer. 
Among other things I shall study law, not with a view to 
practice it, but because it is necessary to a perfect educa- 
tion. I have been a student-slave for these six or seven 



28 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

years, and a teacher-slave some three years, now I mean 
to be a free man for this one year at least." 

Notwithstanding these resolutions of freedom, his subse- 
quent letters show that he continued to be as much a 
' slave' to study as ever, and his health was evidently suf- 
fering from it, though slow to acknowledge it to himself or 
others. In April of the same year he writes from the same 
place : " The spring has come in earnest; birds singing, 
frogs piping, and skies smiling. I wish I felt better to en- 
joy it all. I have studied a good deal this winter, a good 
deal too much for my health, and am going home to re- 
cruit. You in the ' Sunny South,' have had spring for a 
long while. 1 have strolled up East Rock to read Shaks- 
peare under the pines, and anticipate much pleasure in 
doing the same this summer. 

" Shakspeare grows with me every year. I have read 
about all our old tragedies, and have yet a still higher idea 
of Shakspeare from the almost immeasurable distance he 
leaves them behind. I have been reading the German 
dramatists, — Goethe and Schiller. Wallenstein of the 
latter and Shelley's Cenci, are the greatest dramas since 
Shakspeare. Wallenstein is one of the grandest things of 
human genius. But there is comparatively little invention 
in it. The materials were ready rough hewn to the artist's 
hand, and the hero one of the most dramatic in history. 
You have read Schiller's thirty years war. Did you ever 
read Carlyle's life of Schiller 1 If not you have a treat in 
store. Schiller ! the high minded noble artist, and a self- 
martyr to poetry. I might tell you of a thousand matters 



OF THE AUTHOR. 29 

of interest here. We had a fine concert last night, the 
Hutchinson family performers, ' real Yankee singers from 
the old Granite State.' They sing again to-night ; to-mor- 
row, Junior exliibition, and the Philadeipliia brass band, 
who perform also next Tuesday night, so^that between 
that and the Hutciiinsons, we shall be as vocal here in the 
' city of elms,' as a nest of nightingales." 

It would be easy to multiply quotations from his letters, 
of equal interest and beauty to these. One could not go 
amiss in making extracts, for all he wrote was in the same 
tone and style, sometimes, indeed, playful and humorous, 
generally grave, always useful, and for the most part, 
upon the most serious and important subjects. He always 
shows a deep interest in his Tuscaloosa Iriends and ac- 
quaintances, mentioning many of them by name, inquiring 
of their welfare, and speaking kindly of all. He loved to 
hear of their prosperity, and was distressed at the adver- 
sity of any. To learn the death of any one of them was 
very painful to him. On one occasion he says : 

" 1 am very sorry to hear of the death of Professor Sims. 
He was a particular friend of mine. No doubt he shortened 
his days by study. Last spring I met him while on his 
northern tour. * * So he has passed and we are pass- 
ing all — like flowers we wither and like leaves we fall ; 
and we do not, do not, lay the solemn lesson enough to 
heart. I was also grieved to hear of the untimely death 
of Miss B. . ." In another letter dated July 4th, 1845, he 
thus laments the death of another friend: 



30 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

" It grieves me deeply to learn the death of young Por- 
ter, another of my Tuscaloosa friends. He is another 
victim, poor Joseph ! to too much study, too much ' plod- 
ding and poring study,' as a great many others have done, 
and toill do." The rest of the same letter is in a melan- 
choly strain. 

' ' My health is extremely delicate. I may not live to see 
another summer, though there may be many seasons yet 
in store for me. My case must soon take a turn. I am 
shortly going to the sea-side. I feel some renewed energy 
from the glorious mom of this glorious anniversary. You 
have health. Health ! the blessing I have lost ! perhaps 
forever, in this world. But to know that those I esteem 
and love have that which I lack, half makes up my loss. 
A true knowledge of this our mysterious existence — of the 
Being who has made and preserves all, will give us resig- 
nation to all that comes to pass. The difference between 
the shortest and longest of human lives, dwindles to a 
point, a nothing, compared with our eternal diiration. I 
will trouble you no more about my health, and am almost 
ashamed I have said so much." 

His disease was pulmonary consumption, of the slow 
and gradual type, and, as is often the case of sedentary 
and intellectual men, with that disease, he complains of 
the difficulty of disengEiging his mind from too much and 
too deep and abstract reflection. At different times he 
speaks thus, "I have not enjoyed the summer as much 
as I could have wished ; thinking has become a sort of 
craving appetite with me, almost a disease. I am more 



OF THE AUTHOR. 31 

unhappy in trying not to think, than in thinking." "I 
have thought too much and wrought too Uttle the last six 
or seven years." "Indeed, some bustUng, busying occu- 
pation is the one I should have taken immediately on leav- 
ing college." " What value is any thing in the world, or 
the whole world itself, without health. The impressive 
language of scripture may apply with almost equal force 
to body as soul. What shall it profit a man to gain the 
whole world and lose his health 7 I have never felt so 
much as now the value of a ' sound mind in a sound body.' 
Study as I have made it, is a weariness to the flesh, and 
I must take a short summer ramble for recreation." 

Yet in the very next sentences he would launch out 
upon some of his favorite and mind-taxing topics, discuss- 
ing his studies, seeking to gratify some new and transient 
curiosity, and laying schemes for future improvement. 

" When I was in Tuscaloosa, I saw in Dr. M's. library 
some of the works of Swedenborg. He made little or no 
account of them, and his son told me that one or two of 
them had been torn up for waste paper. Perhaps others 
may share the same fate. Now, if you would call on the 
Doctor and procure them for me, (I presume he would 
part with them,) I have a curiosity to read some of them, 
since they have created such excitement." 

" Will you not ask Mrs. E. of Tuscaloosa for one of her 
eyeless fishes from the Mammoth Cave, several of which 
she has preserved. Tell her some men hereabouts doubt 
the visible and tangible verity of fishes without eyes, not- 



32 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

withstanding tlie asseverations of respectable eye-wit- 
nesses." 

" I hope, some day, to be enabled to make a year's ram- 
ble, at my leisure, over our own country, and a two year's 
tour in Europe. The time may never come ; but it has 
been with me a long and lovely dream. The idea of being, 
all our earthly pilgrimage, cut off, from the sight even, of 
so many beautiful persons, places and things, is to an 
earnest and inquiring mind, peculiarly mournful. But it 
must be the lot of a great majority of our race, and it is 
well that so few are qualified by nature or cultivation to 
feel the privation." 

"I am agreeably situated at present, in the bosom of 
nature, amid the limited, yet pleasant variety of a rural 
and somewhat rustic life. I work in the garden and field 
in the morning, ramble through wood and pasture and by 
brook-side in the afternoon, studying nature, birds and 
blossoms. Botany and Ornithology ! two most interesting 
sciences — birds and flowers, the beautiful, ethereal, inno- 
cent and half unearthly creatures and things — and old ac- 
quaintances and playmates from childhood and school-day 
time. We do not, my dear friend, commune often, sm- 
cerelyand simply enough with the works of our Creator, 
either to heartily iaiow, or love, either the one or the 
other ! Let us turn over a new leaf in our lives and in 
God's great and wonderful book. 1 wish you would study 
one or the other of these delightful sciences, and we 
would mutually communicate our discoveries, and living 
so far apart, our different fields of observation would prove 



OF THE AUTHOR. 33 

the more useful and interesting. I do sincerely wish you 
would resume your botany, and begin with an exact sys- 
tem of the prairie flowers. What a fine field is open be- 
fore you ! and what pleasant rambles after the imprison- 
ment of an oiBce. You could do this with an absolute ad- 
vantage to your other pursuits." 

" I wish, I hope, you may study German. So much 
philosophy and poetry will open to you in that noble lan- 
guage, the twin- sister of our own. I have been reading 
Schiller, the greatest of German dramatists. His ' Maid 
of Orleans' and ' William Tell' are glorious. ' Wallen- 
stein' you know, from Coleridge's excellent translation. 
' Mary Stuart' and ' Don Carlos' are excellent. Nova- 
lis, that ' sweet flower of philosophy and poesy so early 
lost,' is a favorite of mine. I have just made a transla- 
tion of his ' Hymns to the Night.' I know nothing like 
them in German, or any language — so full of faith and fer- 
vor, romantic, pathetic, mysterious. These Hymns were 
written shortly after the death of his beloved, and 
shortly before his own. Possibly I may publish them. 
You know, however, I am very fastidious in these things. 
Any work should not be published till a man's life is ended, 
for a whole life is necessary, in happy intervals, to com- 
plete any truly great work. I am now, too, at odd spells, 
translating Novahs' ' Sacred Hymns,' and wish I could 
give you an idea of some of them, one of which I send you, 
as I know you will excuse the translation. 



34 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

TO THE VIRGIN. 

I see in thousand pictured things 
Thee, Mary, shaped so lovingly ; 

But none of all, thine image brings, 
As oft my soul takes glimpse of thee. ' 

I only feel, the world's unrest, 

Since then, waves o'er me like a dream. 

And a Heaven unutterably blest, 

Doth ever in my spirit seem." •» 



It will be kept in mind that while he appears thus en- 
thusiastically given up to these pursuits, he was bearing 
up against that most dispiriting disease, consumption, and 
that the last three or four years of his hfe passed in a very- 
desultory manner, in a constant struggle between a desire 
and an inability to study. He would bury himself in the 
college and other libraries at New Haven till completely 
prostrated, and then take a "ramble," or go home to " re- 
cruit." The more sombre portions of his letters have been 
avoided as too sad and melancholy, and but one more ex- 
tract, referring to his health, is made. It needs, however, 
no apology to have spoken so often of the health of our 
deceased friend. The disease of the invalid becomes a 
part of himself, his very being, and the labors and achieve- 
ments of the literary invalid, the book-worn and thought- 
worn student, acquire a two-fold interest from the pain 
and suffering through which they are wrought out. 



OF THE AUTHOR. 35 

" My hand and heart fail me while I write. I have al- 
ways had a large share of resolution, perhaps too much, 
but I feel my hold on life very weak, and growing weaker 
every day. I have thrown aside all study, all reading, only 
for amusement. I have taken all possible precautions and 
exertions to regain my health, yet 1 feel I have lost 
strength and flesh and spirits. Indeed, I have no doubt I 
have been slowly declining ever since ray last collegiate 
year. I feel now that my residence and sedentary mode 
of life at the South did me no essential good. But I will 
not cast too gloomy forebodings. The Being who made 
is able to save, to whose will I have long resigned myself. 
I hoped, my kind friend and comrade, to see you once 
more in the land of the living, but I have little hope of it 
now. You would find me somewhat different from what 
you have ever known me, and I think, could we commune 
but for one short hour, you would learn better my true 
nature than ever. But I am tmable to write more at 
present." 

The subject of this sketch did not live to make a public 
profession of any religious faith, but his conversations and 
writings evince that he died a Christian. He often ex- 
pressed his conviction of the great truths of Christianity, 
and that the Saviour of the Avorld was the sole reliance 
for future salvation. With all his reading he did not neg- 
lect the sacred volume. 

''But the Book which I hSiVe studied above all others is 
the Bible. I have read it all tlirough in the last year — 
much of it, especially the New Testament, several times. 



36 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR. 

I am surprised that these sublime writings are so much 
neglected, even by those who profess to believe their 
truth. I have lately read and compared the four Gospelsi 
the Acts and St. Paul's Epistles. If such morals, such a 
religion, such faith, hope and charity, were ever thus set 
forth, so purely and sublimely, I would like to know by 
whom, save by Inspiration ?" 



Our friends die and we bury them amid grief and tears, 
while the busy world around feel little sympathy and care 
little for our lamentations. We become so accustomed to 
this that we mourn their loss in silence, neter taxing the 
world for sympathy. It is well, perhaps, that it is so. 
There is generally a private circle, where, to speak of 
their virtues and their good deeds, is no intrusion. But 
whenever a man, distinguished for rare attainment, ex- 
alted worth, great genius, adding to these the highest 
principle, and the most expansive charity and benevolence, 
devoting his life and energy to the most exalted pursuits 
and purposes, — whenever such a man dies, it is right to 
chronicle his virtues. He is entitled to a place in our mem- 
ories and our affections, if only as an example. N. S. 



VISIONS AID YOICES 



OF SOIG. 



Sacred Song was lent to sing thee 
Patient trust for toil and tears. 

Fruits and flowers divine to bring thee 
Borne from fields of other years. 



SONGS AND LYRICS. 



WINIPREDA. 



Fair Winifreda ! loveliest one 

That happiest thought of love might frame, 
Thy spirit like an inner sun 

Sheds through thy form celestial flame, 
While in each motion seems to run 

The charm of thy sweet Saxon name. ^ 

' Kind peace and winning gentleness' 
In all thine air, that charm divine 

No foreign favorite can express, — 
Lenora, Julia, Rosaline, 

Cornelia, Helen, Jane, Therese — 

Sweet names, yet none so sweet as thine. 



40 ■WmiFREDA. 

How brightly by the soft winds shook, 
Thy curling silken tresses swing, 

Like moon-light down a pebbly brook, 
Or wave of bright bird's sunny wing : 

But what can match that tender look, 
More sweet than any earthly thing ! 

How gently from thy lips out-break 

Those mild words melting while they thrill, 

Like summer wind at morn's first wake, 
Or song-gush o'er a starry hill ! 

Pure spirit-tones, for whose dear sake. 
Years gone, we pause to listen still. 



MARY 



Sweet, simple tenderness of tone 

That dearest English name doth hold, 

Bringing rich peaceful feelings flown, 
And fair young fancies fresh from old, 
Like flocks to the heart's evening fold. 

Now full and lulling steals the sound, 
Like summer brooklet's busy trill, 

Or waters warbling under ground, 

When fields in slumbering noon are still. 
And peace sweet Nature's heart doth fill. 

Now soft the gush as falling snow, 
Or shower where rainy April shines. 

Or small bird's chant which faint winds strow 

At sun-down through a ridge of pines. 

When Earth with Heaven in one combines. 
5* 



42 MARY. 

A type of cheerful earnestness, 
Of gentle soul and faithful eyes, 

And beauty born to win and bless, 
Within that pensive music lies, 
That tells the heart its sympathies. 

A pledge of sinlessness and youth. 

An earthly form that whispers Heaven — 

In artless looks and virgin truth. 
In all the grace to woman given, 
To draw us whence our sin hath driven. 

A glimpse of one the heart would strain 
To its fond self till self it grew ; 

A face so full to soothe all pain, 
To look each greeting or adieu. 
And sun life's home its sojourn through. 

These symbols, dear, are in thy name, 
Thyself the substance all, and more ; 

Which seeing who our choice could blame ? 
That name and self in heart we store 
A prize to love and ponder o'er. 



SPRING SONG, 



Now daisies grow by the grassy hills, 
Cowslips through meadows wide, 

And the soul of love all Heaven o'erfills, 
And songs the woodland side. 

We'll go and see them laugh and blow, 
We'll go and hear them sing ; 

To me with thee how sweeter flow 
The early sweets of Spring. 

Oh, when thy own soft voice I hear. 
How sweet the wood-birds sing ! 
^Oh, when I meet thy blue eyes clear, 
How fair the skies of Spring ! 

Thy loveliness can beautify 

Whate'er it doth o'ershine ; 
How blest the sunny hours go by. 

Sweet maid, since thou art mine. 



44 SPRING SONG. 

Thy locks are like the young dove's wing, 
Like watery stars thine eyes ; 

Thy lips two red clouds hovering 
By the gates of evening skies. 

Then we'll away t© the daisied hills, 
And the cowslip'd meadows wide ; 

For the soul of love all Heaven o'erfills. 
And sonofs the woodland side. 



SPRING SONG. 



Now the young May shows her loveliest mien, 

And the air waves sweet and soft, 
The skies are blue, the fields are green, 

And merry birds sing aloft ; 
The flowers are coming o'er the plains, 

And the clear brooks warbling play. 
And afield go forth the happy swains, 

Through all the long, fair day. 

And blessedly comes back to me 

A gush of seasons gone, 
When the heart all love, bloomed fresh and free 

As morning o'er the lawn ; 
Those days, dear Flora, when we went 

Green hills and meadows by, 
And the tall trees fresh in the cool winds bent, 

Or laughed in the moony sky. 



46 SPRING SONG. 

Then every thing enchanting seemed, 

Each thought wore Beauty's dress, 
We looked into the world and dreamed 

Of boundless happiness ; 
And plans of joy and whispered sighs, 

Oft side by side we made, 
And more, thy gentle face and eyes 

Than books or earth, conveyed. 

Those hours are gone, those days are o'er, 

And we are wiser grown, 
But bliss like that our hearts then bore. 

No other days have known : 
Seek fairest clime, come sweetest spring, 

Gain all earth's fame or gold, — 
Still nought so blest as thoughts that bring, 

Those innocent hours of old. 



THE YOUNG SHEPHERD'S SONG. 



The sweet Spring from her southern chamber 

Comes smiling bashful like a bride ; 
Her breath is balm, her locks are amber, 

And dance the bright hours by her side ; 
The clouds drop soft their veil of shadows, 

And young winds lead her by the hand, 
And young girls beat the posied meadows, 

But mine's the fairest of the band. 



The trees their blossom'd arms are lifting. 

Rocking their dear birds evermore ; 
And Nature every sweet is sifting, 

And asks but love for all her store ; 
My blooming heart with fondness greater, 

Holds her, my bird, my Isabel ; 
Fairer, and all as kind as Nature, 

And loved — -did she but know how well ! 



48 THE YOUNG SHEPHERd's SONG. 

I mark in clouds celestial faces, 

And each her visage seems to wear ; 
In town, or field, or desert places. 

Her presence wraps me like the air ; 
From all earth's blithe and beauteous creatures, 

Her smile I see, her voice I hear. 
In all I meet her fairy features, 

And lovelier still doth all appear. 

Oft when I sit, my lamblings keeping, 

And noon sleeps on the rocks and hills, 
And drowsiness o'er all comes creeping, 

I watch with thought that never stills ; 
Gr when day's amber light is westing, 

Or by the banks of starry stream, 
Or on my bed the long night resting. 

Still she is all my thought and dream. 

When shyly from her cottage bower. 

Her glance steals on me passing by. 
What worlds untold of love and power 

Seem opening from her face and eye ; 
O, when the dear maid shall receive me, 

Then merrier ditties will I sing. 
No hardship through the year shall grieve me. 

To me will all the year be spring ! 



THE PARTING. 

[amobkan.] 



HE. 

I GO, yet dear, thine image blest 
Shall be my strength and shield ; 

Love is the garden-dream of rest, 
But life a work-day field. 

SHE. 

Ah go — the pledge is given — though fain 

I'd hold, it may not be ! 
But bring that image back again, 

With thine, unstained, to me. 

HE. 

Yes, that I'll wear, a glass wherein 

All things shall lovelier grow, 

To keep the soul from worldly sin, 

And manlier for its woe. 
6 



50 THE PARTING. 

SHE. 

And my lone home, in calm and storm, 
Past hours shall sweet o'erfall, 

Their thought a spell, and one dear form 
The master of them all. 

HE. 

We part — such is our lot — 'tis best, 
True hearts with love grow strong, 

And look to gain that ' garden-rest,' 
Though sundered far and long. 

SHE. 

I feel it all — so sad, yet true ; 

Time long between will run ; 
But should earth ever keep us two, 

Trust heaven shall make us one. 



THAT LAST SWEET SONG, 



That last sweet song you sung, love, 
That old heart-touching lay, 

Oft in my heart hath sprung, love. 
Through many a weary day, 

And sung itself all young, love. 
Far, far away. 

The clasp thy full hand gave, love, 
This heart hath kept since then. 

And feeling, grew more brave, love, 
It knows not how or when, — 

To thee alone a slave, love. 
A lord with men. 

The parting tear you shed, love, 
My heart a pearl hath kept ; 

The farewell word you said, love. 
Hath never, never slept — 

Sweet pledges oft o'er-read, love. 
And sweetly wept. 



62 THAT LAST SWEET SONG. 

But the touch thy lips did lay, love. 
Most dear in this heart hath lain, 

And the look that won to stay, love. 
Those two no art could feign ! 

And I've come them all to pay, love. 
Nor part again. 



THOSE LOOKS AND TEARS. 



Those looks and tears when we did part, 

A living fount have been, 
A fount of youth within the heart. 

To keep it fresh and green : 
O'er life's dry waste in sorest need 

That fount hath fed like rain. 
And when all fails it still shall feed. 

Though meet we ne'er again. 

Thy gentle presence fills mine eyes, 

Thy spirit fills my mind ; 
And my heart swells like the high wide skies, 

Round thee and all mankind : 
And higher still the nearer thee. 

Each holier impulse thine ; 

Would to thy soul one form might be 

What thou hast been to mine ! 
6* 



THE INDIAN LOVER TO THE WEEKOLIS.2 



Weekolis, sweet Weekolis, 

Thy evening voice I hear ! 
The moon of birds and flowers hath come, 

And planting time is near. 

Weekolis, sweet Weekolis, 
Thou tellest of fish in streams. 

And wild fowl by the opening lakes. 
But none are in my dreams. 

Weekolis, sweet Weekolis, 

The hunt came small to-day. 
The hand was weak upon the bow, 

The heart was far away. 

Weekolis, sweet Weekolis, 

Thou singest like my love ; 
But thou art shy and so is she. 

She shuns me through the grove. 



THE INDIAN LOVER TO THE WEEKOLIS. 55 

Weekolis, sweet Weekolis, 

Go by her cabin sing ; 
She'll list to thee though not to me, 

Dark maid — the timid thing ! 

Weekolis, sweet Weekolis, 

Thy heart sings happily ; 
Thy little mate is kind and true, — 

Would I were bird like thee ! 



SOiNG ON THE PRAIRIE, 



The Prairie ! The Prairie ! 

Where life and love are free, 
And skies are clear and earth is kind, 

There, there be the home for me ! 
Where the wilderness is all ablaze 

With its thousand-blossomed green, 
And the bright air swims with the song of birds. 

And the hum of bees, between. 

The Prairie ! The Prairie !^ 

Where the long bright summer hours, 
The west wind makes his playing ground. 

And dallies with the flowers, — 
The fair young flowers, the sinless ones, 

That smile and know no care ; 
And he kisses dry their dewy cheeks, 

And tosses their golden hair. 



SONG ON THE PE.AIEIE. 57 

The Prairie ! The Prairie ! 

Whence rises, where sinks the sun, 
Where darliening o'er the wavy slopes. 

The dropping shower-clouds run : 
Where bold the forest headlands shoot. 

And through thin groves out-gleam 
Far reaching vistas strange and fair, 

As thoughts in a poet's dream. 

The Prairie ! The Prairie ! 

Where the broad Heaven fills the sight, 
Looks down with face so soft by day, 

And stars so grand at night ; 
With one to look and live and love, 

And love like all things free. 
The skies so fair, the earth so kind, 

O, such be the home for me ! 



TO A YOUNG GIRL PLAYING IN AN ARBOR. 



The mellow winds are gently swinging, 

Grass, bush and tree, 
And tender birds to heaven are singing 

How blest they be : 
There sits a maid and swings, and sings 
Old mellow airs and tender things. 

The winds her long bright curls are tossing 

Like silver flowers. 
And gleams and shades her face are crossing 

The blue noon hours : 
And nature seems to love and lull 
A soul so young and beautiful. 

And there, perhaps, the pure one dreameth 

Bright days, and long. 
And earth, and life, to her but seemeth 

One summer song : 
The light, the song from fairer sphere 
Brought with her, and remembered here. 



TO A YOUNG GIRL PLAYING IN AN ARBOE. 59 

Sweet child ! I would not show the morrow 

To thee so blind ; 
O, might I bear the load of sorrow 

Thou soon must find ! 
Till thou in better climes redeem 
The bliss which here is but a dream. 



S ONG. 



The sweet blue clover 

Blows o'er the lea, 
Blue skies bend over, 

And whisper. Thee. 

As night-dewed blossom 

Enthralls the bee, 
Holds thy sweet bosom 

My soul with Thee. 

From casement streaming, 

O'er street and tree, 
Those eyes they're dreaming,- 

Are they ? — of me. 

With stars of even 

I'll come and see, 
Star of my heaven. 

Sweet maiden, Thee. 



SONG. 



The stars are in the sky, love, 
And the faint winds in the tree, 

And the moon goes o'er the shining wave 
As goes my heart to thee. 

My heart is all with thee, love, 
Its thoughts are all thine own ; 

Afar or near, thy presence dear 
Like light is round me thrown. 

On the fields the shadows rest, love, 
Like forms of vanished years. 

And through the calm deep silentness 
Sweet sounds my spirit hears. 

Sweet tones of memory throng, love, 

That far off scenes recall, 
And thy celestial accents rise, 

So tenderly through all. 

7 



62 SONG. 

They whisper to my soul, iove, 

Of better days to be ; 
And care and fear and grief are gone, 

While thinking, love, of thee ! 



REGRET 



O HAD our day of youth been one, 

Those sweet and sinless hours, 
What tender ties our hearts had spun, 

How knit their opening flowers ! 
Life's sinless hours, when hope and love 

Wei'e all the bosom knew, 
Ere time hope's sunny web unwove, 

Or dried love's summer dew ! 

A charm had then our pathway cheered 

Thro' life's drear emptiness, 
One mutual heart still more endeared, 

Were all else comfortless ; 
When change or death turned others chill, 

Its same warm beat to hold, 
A deep love-spring o'er running still 

Sweet waters as of old. 



64 REGKET. 

Rare bliss — not ours f a harder fate 

Our paths assunder turned, 
And long for that one missing mate 

Each restless soul hath yearned ; 
And each unblest must still search on 

Its kindred self — in vain ; 
One chance there was, and that is gone 

Never to come again ! 



CONSOLATION. 



We'll not grieve for the days that are gone, 

When love was all our gold, 
Ere youth to care sweet peace did pawn ; 
Those bright days still the heart bears on, 

The heart that all doth hold. 

And the innocent heart and right. 
Makes all things fair and pure ; 
Sees something in coming years as bright, 
Finds ever a ray in the darkest night, 
Some good each ill to cure. 



SONG. — CONSOLEMENT, 



Say, dearest, why art thou so often complaining 
Of pleasures that pass to return not again ? 

From the loss of the old still new pleasures we're 
gaining, 
And relish more purely whate'er may remain. 

Our joys, like our moments, are fickle and fleeting. 
Yet we feel by their absence their value more 
dear: 
Could hearts that ne'er part feel the rapture of 
meeting ? 
Were affection so strong, if it loved not in fear ? 

How all earthly treasures the fonder we cherish, 
So frail when they're fairest, so certain to go : 
But they leave purer joys on the dust where they 
perish. 
Green memories there cluster and hopes freshly 
blow. 



CONSOLEMENT. 67 

Were our wishes ne'er crossed, were our friends 
ever round us, 
Had enjoyment no death and affliction no birth, 
The spirit would tire 'neath the dull chain that 
bound us. 
Ah, could love look to heaven if it lost not from 
earth ? 

Woes remembered are joys, and the night hour of 
sorrow 
Sheds sweet dews, refining the heart where they 
fall ; 
Then we'll learn from the past, and in faith wait the 
morrow, 
Make most of the present, and draw good from all. 



TO 



" How soon a love will print a thought that never may remove." 

Earl Surrey. 

When thy bashful eyes first bended 

Innocence of gaze on mine, 
Gleams of higher life descended, 

And the world became divine. 

Hope with knowledge past united, 

All that youth and beauty tell, 
And the young soul saw, delighted. 

Earth a mystic sign and spell. 

Countenance in beauty dreaming, 
Soft eyes hung with fringed shroud, 

Like the watery sunset streaming, 
Through the fringe of evening cloud. 



TO 69 

Summer winds o'er flower banks blowing, 
Brought the wavings of thy hair, 

Form and gesture nobly showing, 
What the look immortals wear. 

Maiden mild, and yet so queenly ! 

Word and act so well became ! 
In thy spirit dwelt serenely. 

Confidence and maiden shame. 

Like none else, yet unsurprising 
Shone the look thy features wore ; 

Seemed the soul but recognizing * 
Something known and loved before. 

One sweet meeting — long since is it ! 

How hath proved the world to thee ? 
Could thy young soul then forevisit 

What its after days should be ? 

Hath thy gentle spirit beauteous, 
Found new love and wedded rest ? 

Dwells it loving still and duteous, 
In the home its presence blest ? 



TO 



Stands thy hope's fair architecture ? — 
Is it crushed and lying low ? — 

So asks vainly fond conjecture, 

And would give the world to know ! 

Shape of light ! whose spell hath lorded 
O'er my captive soul so long, — 

Could the memories there recorded 
Be recorded in my song ! 

Ah ! the tales thy sweet lips ventured, 
In my ear may ne'er be told ; 

But my heart their music entered, 
With enchantments manifold. 

And thy slow tears shed at leaving, 
Did thy wishful thoughts reveal, 

Resignation calmly grieving, 
Loss no other love might heal. 

Though I knew we then must sever, 
That thou never mine might be. 

Yet flows life more lovely ever. 
In the bliss it caught from thee. 



LAMENT 



Young victim of the spoiler's dart, 

With ceaseless grief I pine ; 
The shaft went through thy tender heart, 

But ah ! 'twas left in mine. 

I think of thee, I think of thee, 

In many a pensive hour. 
When backward thought goes wandering free, 

Through memory's Eden bower. 

I think of thee when fresh new Spring 

Laughs from the shining sky. 
And merry birds are on the wing. 

And gentle gales blow by. 

I think of thee when dark woods moan, 
And winds wail round the door ; — 

So dreary pines the heart all lone, 
For those who come no more. 



72 LAMENT. 

I think of thee when silent snows 

Fall through the wintry sky, 
And deep the stillness of repose 

On every thing doth lie. 

I think of thee when eve's pale star 

Drops softly down the west ; 
So calmly to thy home afar, 

Thy spirit sank to rest. 

I think of thee in blessed dreams, 
When the moon looks on the hill ; 

I hear thy voice in the falling streams, 
When the nightly winds are still. 

I hear thy voice in the starry air, 
Like an angel's far sweet strain, 

Till waked by the sounds of earth and care 
To toil and grieve again. 

Farewell ! farewell ! I'll think of thee. 

And my dark path travel on. 
Till my task be done, and that bright land won 

Where thou, loved one, art gone. 



O BE MY GRAVE ON THE MOUN 
TAIN'S BREAST. 



O BE my grave on the mountain's breast, 
In its green wild still and lonely, 

And nought around or o'er my rest, 
The sky's blue temple only. 

Away from earth, where the stars of night 
Their vestal fires are burning. 

Still nearer to that world of light. 
Home of the spirit's yearning. 

Then lay me on the mountain top. 

Where the summer clouds may hover. 

And the gentlest dews of evening drop. 
And the free winds wander over. 

There first shall come the golden day. 

Last go with pale declining ; 
And the fair moon make her longest stay, 

And hang with brighter shining. 
8 



74 O BE MY GRAVE ON THE MOUNTAIN'S BREAST. 

So make my bed on the mountain's breast, 
There sweet shall be my sleeping, 

With the stars, kind watchers, o'er my rest, 
In Heaven's own holy keeping. 



ODE TO CAPT, NATHAN HALE.^ 



Full stern was his doom, but full firmly he died, 
No funeral or bier they made him, 

Not a kind eye wept, nor a warm heart sighed, 
O'er the spot all unknown where they laid him. 

In Freedom's cause at her earliest call, 

To the field of strife he hasted, 
And dared for her sake, and suffered all, 

E'en her bitterest draught he tasted. 

"But one life, my country, to give for thee!" 
Was the last the high spirit hath spoken ; 

Breathing that deep wish so earnestly, 
And its earthly bonds were broken ! 

He. fell in the spring of his early prime, 
With his fair hopes all around him ; 

He died for his birth-land, ' a glorious crime,' 
Ere the palm of his fame had crowned him. 



76 ODE TO CAPT. NATHAN HALE. 

He fell in her darkness — he lived not to see 

The morn of her risen glory ; 
But the name of the brave in the hearts of the free, 

Shall be twined with her deathless story. 



ODE TO SLEEP. 



Yff' oSava; wSay'is Yttve S'aXySMv 

EuaJif rifiiv sXdoLs 

Etiajtov svaicov ava^. k.t. X. 

Soph. Philoct. 827. 

Spirit mild of mystic slumber ! 

Now with wizard spell lay by 
Galling cares and loads that cumber, 

Soothing sense and sealing eye. 

Come in blue and starry mantle, 
Wave thy downy-feathered wing, 

Wave with touch all soft and gentle. 
O'er the world's each living thing. 

Brains with thought in hot beat throbbing, 
Lids by light long filled and pained. 

Hearts o'ercome with joy or sobbing, 
Nerves unstrung or toil-o'erstrained. 



78 ODE TO SLEEP. 

Come with lull of brooklets flowing, 
Or lone break of distant seas, 

Rain-drops, wind-sighs, far herds lowing, 
Lisping leaves or humming bees. 

Come with scent of piny highlands, 
Or balm groves of spicy zone ; 

Come with breath of flowery islands, 
Whence the evening winds have blown. 

Come with raven hair rich braiden 
From the moonshine's watery beams ; 

Hush my couch, sky-hovering maiden ! 
Sing me all thy happiest dreams. 

Dreams through cloudy gateways fading 
To a high and beauteous clime. 

Dazzling vistas faint foreshading 
Scenes beyond the scenes of time. 

For to thy sweet hand are given 
All the treasures of the night, 

Keys that ope the gates of heaven 
On the wearied earth-worn sight. 



ODE TO SLEEP. 79 

Come, day's bed with flowers o'er-strewing, 
While thick dusk the East-land fills, 

Stay, till morn's young breath o'er-blowing, 
Wake to life the warbling hills. 

From the Orient, tireless rover ! 

Veiled behind the shadow'd sun, 
Thou long realms hast wandered over, 

And their daily tasks are done. 

Houseless bands in deserts tenting, 

Men in cot or bustling town, 
Prayerless, or the past repenting, 

Vexed or calm, have laid them down. 

Thou hast walked the princely palace, 
Feast and dance and bridal train, 

Sweetened sorrow's bitter chalice. 
Soothed the bed for limbs of pain. 

Stilled gay feet in revel chamber, 
Won fair creatui'es from their play, 

Birds, that wing or beasts that clamber, 
Air or steep as free as they. 



80 ODE TO SLEEpi 

Thou hast roamed o'er savage ridges, 
Where great sti'sams their wells inurn, 

Listening, paced earth's outmost-edges, 
Lonesome, where no hearths upburn. 

Blessings thine reach all God's creatures, 
High or humble, wild or tame ; 

Shiftless Fortune changes features. 

Thou, sweet Friend ! art still the same. 

Dove of peace ! pure virtue serving, 
Bride unwooed of sinless heart I 

Ne'er may bosom undeserving. 
Buy with gold or win from art I 



STRAWBERRY SONG OF INDIAN DAMSELS. 



Our wigwams are over the hill, 

With the fair lake shining by, 
Where yon red clouds are gathering 

Like warriors in the sky. 
And thither with song we'll go 

When the first dews cool our feet, 
And the moon in the east riseth slow, 

And the whippowill's voice is sweet. 

Moon, queen of our dances so long. 
The season of berries she brings, 

And birds of the tenderest song, 

And blossoms and beautiful things : 

O'er our cabins soft beaming serene. 

Where friends wait our coming to see, — 
Look yonder ! they're out on the green. 
Good welcome and cheer there will be. 



82 STEAWBEKEY SONG. 

With berries our baskets are full, 

And our burden 'tis pleasure to bear ; 
To the hot day the dust cometh cool, 

And the fresh winds give life to the air. 
Sing, sisters ! as homeward we wend. 

And our merry feet keep the way. 
Soon our toil the dance round our cabins shall end 

For the luck we have had to-day. 



ROAD SONG OF EARTH'S TRAVELERS. 



We are marching on ! we are marching on 
The paths our lot or choice hath drawn, 
With Truth behind and Trust before, 
And Pain beneath, but Promise o'er. 
Stern foes, fair tempters on each side, 
. Yet shield without and strength within, 
And faithful friends unterrified, — 

Right, wise to rule — Will, strong to win. 

We are toiling on ! we are toiling on. 
To rest with dark, and start with dawn, 

Down smooth green vales, up mountains steep, 

O'er shifting Land and stormy Deep. 
Though dark the wave, and hard the way, 

'Twill better keep in mind the goal ; 
O'er gloomy nights dawns brighter day. 

From sterner strife grows stronger soul. 



84 EOAD SONG. 

On to the tomb ! On to the tomb ! 

Where all find rest and, still there's room : 

We'll bear each other's loads, for we 

Neighbors at death, through life should be. 
So shall our wayfare easier hold, 

More long for peace, more short for pain ; 
Sweet kindness yields an hundred fold. 

With blessings sown and reaped again. 

We come no more ! we come no more ! 
We seek our lost ones gone before ; 

When all are found what need we here, 

To love in grief and hope in fear ! 
Some better home must be, to keep 

Things whispered oft the spirit's ear, 
Where souls rejoined their promise reap, 

See every earthly mystery clear. 

Though near shuts down life's narrow sky, 
Broad lands we know beyond must lie ; 
Though blank and dim in Day's full glare, 
Fair worlds of light are shining there. 



SONGS OF THE LABORERS, 



"Homo sum, niiiil bumani a me alienum puto." — Terence. 
" I am a man, in man I take a part, 
The good of man is ever next my heart." 

THE PLOUGHMAN'S SONG. 

Now the budding woods grow green around, 

And the fields grow green below, 
New voices wake from the melting ground, 

And the fair skies freshly blow ; 
The birds arise from their wintry dream, 

And daisies unto the sun, 
And we'll afield, my jolly brisk team, 

'Tis time that our work begun. 

The crop-grounds over we tug along. 
Ere the sun on the hill-top stands, 

And sturdy and strong we whistle our song. 
And strike out the long straight ' lands.' 
9 



SON&S OF THE LABOKERS. 

How smooth the opening furrows run ! 

And the warm rich light comes down ; 
No balk or stay for stump or stone, 

Till the evening trees look brown. 

Each turn the black stripes wider grow, 

And the green lands narrow fast ; 
Strain the beam, stout team ! and bend the bow, 

Brave working is soonest past : 
We'll bait at noon with rest and feed. 

There's plenty in mow and stall ; 
Ye shall not lack a friend at need 

As ye've been to me through all. 

Hard, toil we out the teeming spring. 

And trust to friendly skies. 
To shelter and nurse with their rainy wing 

When the staff of life shall rise : — 
See ! the shadowy shower goes over the hills. 

One side to the full bright sun. 
And her nurselings earth with sweet food fills. 

How they drink and smile each one ! 



SONGS OF THE LABORERS. 87 

The gold we dig is the golden corn, 

Bright plough-share our mining spade, 
A full-stored crib our Plenty's horn, 

And such is our task and trade : 
By the sM^eat of our brow we gain our bread, 

Grudge lords nor wealth nor land ; 
Would that for man each wiser head 

Toiled as well as our hard strong hand. 



SONG OF THE HAYMAKERS. 

First Chorus, — the Mowers. — [Men.] 

Now stoutly lay the shining scythe 

Along the grassy sea ; 
The meadow larks are singing blithe 

Above the morning lea. 
Our blades we fling with whistling swing, 

And the tall green grass drops low, 
And thick behind the swaths we string, — 
■ So bravely on we go ! 



88 SONGS OE THE LABORERS. 

And now the field doth narrower seem, 

'Twill all be down by noon ; 
How little did the young flowers dream 

That they must fall so soon ! 
See ! far and near the grass lies sere, 

And withering strown the flowers ; 
So Time mows life year after year, 

So fall its happier hours. 

Second Chorus, — the Spreaders. — [Boys. 

We shake the dewy heaps and strow 

The locks to the sun and air ; 
Around us warm the soft winds flow, 

The weather how fresh and fair ! 
Through the sunny day we'll make the hay, 

So toss it brisk and strong, 
And full of glee our hearts shall be 

As the grasshoppers in song. 

Third Chorus. — Both. 

Now the noon-blaze beats, and the locusts scream 

Shrill from the windless trees, 
And the zigzag fences sweltering gleam, 

And the bright sky rings with bees. 



SONGS OF THE LABORERS. 09 

Our limbs are laid 'neath the tall high shade, 
Where the small birds merrily sing ; 

On soft cool seat our meal how sweet, 
And our drink the living spring. 

Fourth Chorus, — the Rakers. — [Men and Maidens.] 

Swift o'er the field with rake we pass, 

The hay is dry and brown, 
And rustles like a fresh trim lass 

In her silken Sunday gown. 
Our windrows stout we lengthen out 

Across the smooth shorn lawn ; 
Breathes through the calm Heaven's winnowing 
balm, 

Like a sweet thought felt and gone ! 

But see ! yon black cloud rising high. 

Hark, the thunder's deepening swell ! 
Strain hard ! — but now 'tis passing by. 

It clears, and all turns well. 
The haycocks grow in many a row, 

Like a tented plain so still ; 
Then bend, lads, bend, our task we'll end 

Ere the sun goes down the hill. 
9* 



SONGS OF THE LABOKERS. 

Fifth Chorus, — the Pitchers. 

Our forks we ply, nor slow nor scant, 

The round heaps up we throw ; 
And see, like some huge elephant, 

The full wain waddling go. 
With many a load our barns are stowed, 

And our stacks rise thick and tall, 
Now the final one his crown puts on, 

And now 'tis evening-fall. 

Sixth ChoruSf—All. 

The day is gone, our work is done, 

Now we may sing or play, 
And rest us till another sun 

Comes back his summer way. 
Let winter blow, and fall the snow, 

Or drive the wind and rain ; 
Our snug-stalled herds for food may low, 

And shall not low in vain. 



SONGS OF THE LABORERS. 91 

SONG OF THE REAPERS. 

Afield, brisk swain, — the harvest plain 
Waves yellow locks for the reaping ; 

The lark sings shrill, and over the hill 
The eye of morn is peeping. 

Up ! up ! nor lag, with bottle and bag, 
And our reap-hooks on our shoulder, 

We'll trudge it through the chilly dew, 
And care not an 'twere colder. 

In the new cool day, while the west winds play? 

We'll work till the noon-tide swelter, 
Then by shady spring, while the crickets sing, 

We'll rest in the woodland's shelter. 

O'er wastes and flood on plains of blood, 

Let men reap gold or laurel ; 
Our wealth is the yield of the harvest field, 

Nor bought by wound or quarrel. 

Bright sickles are the swords we wear, 

The march — our jolly bustling. 
Our fields of arms the fields of our farms, 

And their shocks — our sheaf-shocks rustling. 



92 SONGS OF THE LABOEERS. 

Our triumph-car of well waged war 
Is the wain that laboring trundles, 

With the golden spoil of our glorious toil, 
To our temple rich in bundles. 

Then come, brisk swain, the harvest plain 
Bends its yellow locks for the reaping ; 

The lark pipes shrill, and over the hill 
The eye of morn is peeping ! 



CORN HUSKER'S SONG. 

.» 

(Air, — " Auld Lang Syne.") 

Now, lads, draw round the big corn ring, 

And fetch your girls so gay, 
And we will work, and we will sing, 

And sing the time away. 



We'll sing and think of this our glee. 

For Auld Lang Syne, 
When many an after year comes round, 

For Auld Lang Syne. 



SONGS OF THE LABORERS. 93 

All in the sweet October night, 

All 'neath the starry sky, — 
The Moon looks on and laughs so bright, 

And lights us with her eye. 

She lights us with her eye, my love, 

Yet not so bright as thine ; 
White swims yon little cloud above, 

Thy shoulders whiter shine. 

Now briskly strip the robe so white 

From off the long bright ear. 
The stack is large, the work is light. 

For many hands are here. 

The stack is large, thanks to the soil. 

And Heaven so kind that gave, 
And lends the sweet reward to toil 

In Plenty's golden wave. 

My dear, we've through the green corn beat, 

Now will we husk the dry, 
And you shall make the pudding sweet, 

Then let the sharp husks fly. 



94 SONGS OF THE LABORERS. 

They fly like snow — and swelling fair, 
The yellow corn heap gleams, 

While wake our songs the silver air 
Out from its glimmering dreams. 

And soon we'll end, and give our cheer. 

And draw a merrier ring, 
Sing songs, tell tales, and kiss our dear 

More happy than a king ! 



THE MILLER'S SONG. 

With headlong bound, comes the water down. 

In its noisy and reckless play, 
.Mid the tall wheel flings out his arms like wings. 

And stoutly he toils away. 

Now high, now low, his broad hands go. 
As they catch up the tumbling wave ; 

It foams and it frets — he groans and he sweats, 
Man's brawny and patient slave. 



SONGS OF THE LABORERS. 95 

And hoarse within, his workmen din 

In their wild yet measured ways, 
Up, cross, and round, with a boistei'ous sound, 

Their master each one obeys. 

In its dizzy whirl, like a dancing girl, 

See the burring stone spins round. 
And fast though few, the grains drop through, — 

The bright heap soon is ground ! 

So day and night, with tireless might, 

The master he's grinding on, 
Thro' sun and storm, in cold and warm, 

Till his aged strength is gone. 

By his sweat free shed, he earns his bread, 

Which other mouths must fill ; 
He asks no meed, he has no need, 

And he drudges and drudges still. 

So night and day, life's organs play, 

And the laboring pulses bound ; 
So on to its close, the heart-stream flows, . 

And rolls life's wheels around. 



96 SONGS OF THE LABORERS. 

And Time doth stand, with glass in hand, 

So fleeting its bright sands run, 
One — one — they pass, yet soon the glass 

Is out, and our life is done. 

Then like the mill, our duties still 
Let us ply till our task shall end, 

Nor seek self-gains by our toil and pains. 
But a bettei'ed world, our friend. 

The master heart, which stirs each part, 
May the spirit of kindness move ,• 

Like the bright stream free, let our impulse be 
The gushing of human love ! 



LYRE OF THE OLDEN TIME, 



COMPLAINT AND RESPONSE. 



COMPLAINT. 



The swift hour-glass the speedier spendeth, 
The nimble stream first meets the main ; 

And the quick pulse the earlier endeth, 
Fine hearts like harps break first in twain ! 

RESPONSE. 

The sand though swift the brighter fleeteth, 
And purer runs the nimble rill ; 

And the quick pulse the warmer beateth, 
Fine hearts like harps more sweetly thrill. 

COMPLAINT. 

Death first will find the soonest flower, 

Nursed on the dew-green breast of spring ; 

And hearts the earliest in their hour, 
Are ever first to feel his sting ! 
10 



98 LTEE OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

RESPONSEi 

The spring-ripe flower grows sweetest, whitest, 
Its time all youth, then drops away ; 

And early heart bears burden lightest, 
Life's prime, without its sad decay. 



IDLENESS. 

Keen frost full soon the dull stream freezeth. 
And weeds unworn wastes mould or moth ; 

So the slow foot old age first seizeth, 
And cankereth thought in sluggish sloth. 

Time when most used the longer stayeth, 
And time most spent the faster flees ; 

Rest to unrest the soul bewrayeth, 
But the mind's action works its ease. 



LYRE OF THE OLDEN TIME. 99 

HIDDEN GRIEF. 

The rose-pent worm the blossom eateth, 
Rust on the steel its nurse doth prey ; 

So pines the heart which care secreteth, 
So sadness will its keeper slay. 

The fountain whence no clear stream creepeth, 

Is but a stagnant pool, or froze, 
And the poor heart no tear that weepeth, 

Hath naught to wash away its woes. 

The dew of grief sheds its own healing, 
Drained from the soul to give it rest ; 

Sorrowing is sorrow's sweetest feeling, 
Even in its sharpest anguish, blest. 



A VOICE TO THE YOUNG. 



" Macte, nova virtute, puer : sic itur ad astra." 

Young man on life's highway parting, 
Needs faithful guide and friend thy soul ? 

Weigh then well thy choice at starting, 
But ever most thyself and goal. 

Thousand paths stretch round to lure you, 
Each best, best walked — all find the end ; 

Each the great have trod before you, 

Once young — your steps to cheer and mend. 

Keep a heart gtill pure and holy. 
Above all earthly treasures best ; 

Pure heart ! which of all things solely 
Can fear no ill and find true rest. 



VOICE TO THE YOUNG. 101 

Be not doubtful or dejected, 

Though men misdeem, neglect or wrong j 
By thyself be thou respected. 

The world will own thy worth ere long. 

Time shall find thee work and wages, 
Large field for fame if thou but fill ; 

Look to come the Golden Ages, 

Then count each moment golden still. 

Souls dwell here to love and labor. 

And happier, greater thence to grow, — 

Love that makes all men its neighbor, 
And labor working good from wo. 

Bear sweet childhood's better feelings. 
With manhood's bravery, all thy days ; 

So shall light from Heaven's revealings 

Make plain, life's stern and steepest ways. 

By thought's cool springs oft retiring. 

Thy soul shall wash each earthly stain, 
Clear its sight, take draughts inspiring. 

To feed and nerve its march again. 
10* 



102 A VOICE TO THE YOUNG. 

Rising stay, your nation raising, 

Vanguard and trust of coming years ; — 

See, in long dim lines they're gazing, 
O, turn not all their trust to tears ! 

Things sublime your soul are calling, 

High spheres, rich crowns — all yours to win ; 

Charge so great betray npt, falling 
To wed the earth and gain — its sin. 

In the vineyard of your Father, 

Last laborer, most your need may be ; 

All time aids your toil, then gather 
The fruits of immortality. 

Man, God's noblest work to render 

Still worthier God, be thou still found ; 

And to view His fuller splendor, 

Await thy bliss where thou art bound. 



FAITH, 



"Faith touching all things with hues of Heaven." — Hemans. 

Faith, the end and the beginning, 
Of all knowledge 'neath the sun ; 

All that earth can give, though winning, 
Man must rest in thee when done. 

Higher truths lie still beyond us, 

Thought ne'er reached nor tongue hath told ; 
Faith makes plain the dark and wondrous, 

New things finding in the old. 

Highest things must be mysterious. 

Bound the wisdom of the wise ; 
But the earnest soul and serious 

Where it may not reach, relies : 



104 FAITH. 

Feels the highest still the surest, 

Measure whence all else is shown ; 

Finds the teachings sweetest, purest. 
Whispered Faith, in thy love-tone. 

Prophet, thou, on Time's last mountains, 
Whence eternal things are seen, 

Whence out-flow those living fountains. 
Making this bleak world so green. 

Calm Assurance, strong yet lowly, 
Source of thought and deed sublime. 

Bringing down the blest and holy, 
Rising over Death and Time : 

Light to Learning's labored blindness. 
Cheerful strength to doubt and toil, 

Warmth of sympathy and kindness, 
Breeze of Peace to life's turmoil : 

Childlike trust and heart-expansion. 
Blooming Love for all mankind : — 

Till the new soul grows a mansion 
For all loveliest shapes of mind. 



FAITH. 105 



On life's hard road tired and fainting, 
Thou dost bring us food and balm ; 

Still of better days acquainting, 

Where our hearts will soon grow calm. 

Open Worlds of bliss and glory, 

Spreads behind life's clouding veil : — 

Brother, think what lies before thee. 
And thy heart shall never fail. 



CHARITY, 



Come, Spirit of the loftiest creed 

From God revealed to suffering man ; 

Friend to our every ail and need, 
Each purest wish, and noblest plan. 

Her tender hand best heals each wound, 
By sin, or piercing sorrow given, 

Doth lift the wretched from the ground, 
And win the wanderer back to heaven. 

Her soul clasps all like God's bright sky, 
O'er-breathing life and beauty warm ; 

All hope and blessedness her eye, 
All light and peace her angel form. 

With kind reproof in truth sincere, 
She checks, redeems her erring child ; 

And in the smile her features wear. 
All warring hearts grow, reconciled. 



CHARITY. 107 

Hates sin, yet loves the sinner still, — 
Forgiveness, grace, her vengeance all ; 

Till sweet as spring, repentance fill 
Hearts humbler, holier from their fall. 

We're wanderers all from Right and Truth, 
By doubt and passion drawn astray ; 

And pay with sadness, pain, and ruth. 
The hours we left the heavenly way. 

We're brethi'en joined in weal or wo. 
Our bane to hate, our bliss to love ; 

We find one common fate below. 
We seek one common home above. 

Be thine her wisdom, — wealth of soul, 
To feel all life hath felt or known ; 

Which finds its wants within the whole. 
And makes all others' joys its own. 

So God and Man shall fill thy heart, 

And earth a new creation rise ; 
Thou'lt reach the fairest dream of art. 

And hope's full longings realize. 



*^ 



KINDNESS, 



Sweet kindness descends like the warm summer rain, 
On the heart where cold reason appealeth in vain ; 
It can soften the hard, make the good better still, 
While harshness and coldness the best turn to ill. 

All may not find wealth, but its joys all may find ; 
All cannot be greatest, yet all can be kind : 
Sweet kindness how easy, what conquest it wins, 
Its thought meets our death-bed and pleads for our 
sins. 

Its language all know, and it goes to the heart. 
No learning it needeth, no labor of art ; 
Like the sweet breath of heaven all bounties it brings, 
O praise ! that life's best are life's commonest things. 



KINDNESS. 109 

Comes to all, ah, how welcome ! a kind look or tone, 
To the sinful, the wretched, whose griefs are un- 
known ; 
The feeble to strengthen, the friendless to cheer, 
Bid the humble be bold, and the faint persevere. 

How little we know whom we shun or despise, — 
What sorrows they suffer, what greatness disguise. 
What noble hearts warm with high feelings and brave, 
Our neglect leaves to sink when our kindness might 
save. 

What numbers in life meet we once and no more, 
And the heart feels your smile when the meeting is 

o'er ! 
Far from most, we're kept strangers, few have we to 

love : — 
Let us meet all men here as we'd meet them above. 



11 



LOVE. 



Eternal spring of joy and beauty, 

Light of this earthly frame, 
First Teacher of all truth and duty, 

God's smile and holiest name ! 

In thee the opening heart perfected, 

Sees life new blooming rise, 
And every fairest form reflected, 

From glorious earth and skies. 

In thee all blest things find completeness^ 

Faith, Hope and Charity ; 
The foretastes of immortal sweetness, 

And splendor vast to be. 

All sunlike, thou, space, time and season 
Dost blend one beauteous whole : 

Thine arguments the bloom of reason. 
Thy proofs, the fruit of soul. 



LOVE. Ill 

Earth knows no wealth, no true enjoyment, 

But from thy fountain flows ; 
And want, and wo and hard employment 

With thee all lighter grows. 

Each soul for endless good is yearning, 

Than aught it finds more sure ; 
Thy promise keeps its altar burning, 

Still strengthening to endure. 

To every heart thy voice is singing 

Some sweet celestial tone ; 
With gentlest impulse nearer bringing 

On to th' Eternal Throne. 

Then reign, our spirit's master feeling, 

Make all more pure and blest : 
All wisdom's in thy high revealing. 

All riches in thy rest. 



FREEDOM, 



O THOU of long mistaken name, 

Man's highest heritage and pride, 
Which oft the false have brought to shame, 

For which the true have toiled and died ; 
However called, Right, Liberty, 
Celestial born ! we worship thee. 

Brave men for thee have nobly bled, 

And thou, their guest, wert all unknown ; 

Thy hope hath oft the wretched fed. 

Who, blest, had slaves or tyrants grown ; 

While treacherous friends have made thee thrall, 

Most meanly tyrannous of all. 

Yea, arms which first thy cause defended, 
Have turned the first to wound or slay ; 

Tongues whose bold speech so well befriended 
Grew still, or spoke but to betray ; 

And hearts that followed long and far. 

Misdeemed thy light a setting star. 



FREEDOM. 113 

And some have held thee Fortune's right, 
To feed their power and passions by ; 

And some a cloud or heavenly height, 
For human reach to vague or high ; 

Then coldly turned to earth their eyes, 

Obsequious to its meanest prize. 

A faithful few, God's chosen spirits. 
Have stood and witnessed unto men, 

Thy truth, thy triumphs, and thy merits. 
By toil and patience, sword or pen ; 

And left to all the future time. 

Fruits of their faith and task sublime. 

The Saint, Apostle, Bard and Seer, 
With prophet voice, and harp and lyre, 

Have taught thy presence to revere. 

Kindling the world like tongues of fire ; 

Great souls on mighty missions sent. 

As new stars in the firmament. 

They teach how knowledge ends with trust 
In Perfect Good, sincere, and strong ; 

Freedom, — obedience to the just. 

Without the will to choose the wrong ; 

The pure obedience of a child 

Tempted to guilt, yet undefiled. 
11* 



114 FREEDOM. 

Great teachers, though so oft disputed 

By darkened hearts whose gold was dross ; 

Neglected, shunned, or persecuted, 

With lash of hate, chains, fire, or cross ; 

Down-trodden, yet o'er mounting still 

Those who might crush but could not kill. 

Still may such inspiration find 

In some choice hearts an altar pure, 

Till man's vast soul that long hath pined 
An exile, reach its home secure ; 

Its God, its Freedom lost regain. 

The joy of truth without its pain. 



SCRIPTURE PIECES. 



DEATH OF THE FIRST BORN. 



A CEY was in Egypt, a wild midnight scream, 

And the king started up, and his lords from their 

dream, 
And the priests and the people woke ghastly with 

dread, — 
Each household was smitten, each home had its 

dead ! 

In the deep hour of slumber, through all the broad 

land, 
Went death like a shadow, pale plague in his hand : 
With footsteps unheard every threshold he passed, 
And the sleep his touch deepened, that sleep was the 

last. 



116 DEATH OF THE FIRST BORN. 

And all the wide land was a funeral that morn, 
Where parents sat wailing their earliest born ; 
At evening how lulled they those eyes to repose, — 
The morning hath come — ^they shall never unclose. 

The babe hung like snow on the mother's warm 

breast, 
No breathing stirred softly the robe from its rest, 
And the face of the child in its cradle did lie, 
But pulseless and fixed as the star in the sky. 

The flocks rise up early from valley and hill, 

But the scared dams bleat restless, their yeanings 

are still ! 
Wherever life breathed had the pest-arrow stung, 
And the full heart of grief overflowed every tongue. 

For the soul of Jehovah was kindled in wrath, 
And the scourge swept like fire on its terrible path ; 
The oppressor's proud heart fell subdued 'neath the 

rod. 
And the oppressed went forth in the light of their 

God. 



DESTRUCTION OF PHARAOH'S HOST. 



The morning watch arose, 

And a cloud of light and darkness lay 
Between the hosts — to blind the foes, 

And lead the faithful on their way. 

All night the breath of God had blown, 

And the waters from their deeps were gone ; 

The sea's vast bed, dry land had grown, 
And the favored band marched on. 

Each side the watery wall 

Stood steep in awful pause of power, 
Staying in silence stern, its fall, 

Obedient to the appointed hour. 

And silent Israel's myriads passed, 

In hush of reverence and fear. 
Nor dared behind a look to cast 

On dangers threatening near. 



118 DESTRUCTION OF PHARAOH's HOST. 

Dark Egypt saw, and drave 

With chariot, steed, and armed men ; 

Hard through the path the mighty clave, 
Like raging lions to their den. 

Then looked forth from his fiery veil 

The Lord, and smote that proud host through ; 

Their hearts turned faint, their looks grew pale, 
And their clogg'd wheels heavily drew. 

Now Israel gained the shore, — 

Then stretched his rod their leader's hand ; 
And the sea's heart hear'd with a sullen roar, 

And his troubled victims whelming spanned : 

Horses and horsemen plunged and fell, 
Then sunk like lead in the mighty sea ; 

Their cry was lost in the stormy swell, — 
And the faithful ones were free. 



DESCRIPTIVE AND MEDITATIVE POEMS. 



EVENING VOICES OP AUTUMN. 



The sun hath crossed yon steep gray mountain, 
And left in mourning all the plain ; 

Air lulls, no sound of bird or fountain, — 
And ye begin your solemn strain ! 

A ONE, grave voice, as earth were holding 

In soul some deep soliloquy ; 
Or, sunk to rest, her veiled arnas folding, 

Worshipped and sang her Deity. 

Mysterious chant — the dirge of Summer, 
Through field, o'er hill, from woodland tall ; 

And the listening heart beats slow and dumber, 
And thought broods o'er it like a pall : 



120 EVENING VOICES OF AUTUMN. 

Thought of the thousand seasons numbered 
By that deep tongue's mysterious tone ; 

Of human forms that woke and slumbered, 
Of secrets long ere man was known : 

Of what through dim years sprung and faded, 
When life was new and time was young ; 

What change 'neath starry skies or shaded. 
With changeless speech, lone ones, ye've sunj 

And still night's watches long ye're making 
That same vague chant of mournful theme ; 

An annual hymn of Time out-breaking 
From old Eternity's mute dream : 

Like voices oracling from under 

The sacred chambers of the ground. 

In the ear of stars entranced in wonder 

What tongues their sister sphere hath found. 

It seems all buried things are spoken, 

Past, future blend, thought wonders how ; 

The seals of birth and death are broken. 
And all time grows one pulseless now. 



EVENING VOICES OF AUTUMN. 121 

We hark, and thoughts of earnest duty 
Within our minds like planets rise ; 

And looks of love, and shapes of beauty 
Shine on our souls with deathless eyes. 

We listen, and more manfully start on 
Life's conflict, battling wo and wrong ; 

As war-hymn sad nerved serious Spartan, 
In solemn strength our hearts grow strong. 
12 



TO A FLOWER IN A SOLITARY PLACE. 



Thotj standest in the desert ground, sweet flower, 
Hard by this stripe of ancient wood ; 

Doing thy task and living out thine hour, 
Young hermit, gay in solitude ! 

Lorn as some castaway on island wild, 

Lone as in heaven a single star : 
With joy I greet thee like a fair lost child, 

Wandered from home and parents far. 

No kindred flowrets near, no gentle mate 
Bends to thee lisping tenderest things ; 

The wilderness spread round thee desolate ! — • 
Yet sweet companionship it brings. 

Vicissitude of peace : — low singings come 
From minstrels in the warm, bright grass ; ~ 

Soft in thy charmed ear the wild bees hum 
All day, and mild winds by thee pass. 



TO A FLOWER IN A SOLITARY PLACE. 213 

And skies stoop o'er thee with as loving face, 
And feed with light and dews as kind, 

As thy fair sisters nursed in gilded vase, 
In green-house, or in garden shrined. 

Thine eyes by day look up as trustfully, 

And fold at night their lids to sleep. 
In Him the Parent good of them and thee, 

Him who created, and will keep. 

And, when thy summer date and toil is done, 
Thou droppest on the dank, cold plain ; 

Night voices hymn thy dirge at set of sun, 
Low telling thou shalt rise again. 

And hence, free moving, thinking Man may know, 
What or where e'er his lot is thrown, 

No spot so waste but can some beauty show. 
No heart so drear but holds some joy its own. 

Teach him thy earthly lord, sweet flower, each year 

To feel his source, aim, end divine ; 
And fill as faithfully his higher sphere. 

As, lowly one, thou fillest thine. 



THE DESERTED DWELLING. 



Across the western uplands wild 
I wandered once, a wayward child, 
Ere while o'er glade and woodland brown, 
The dusk of sober eve came down ; 
Sauntering and humming all the way, 
What rare bright flowers my steps did stay, 
Else, free as blew the harvest breeze 
From posied knolls and grassy leas ; 
Till through the shrubby wold so wide, 
A single house I spied. 

The mansion looked so strange and lorn, 
So lifeless, mute, and weather-worn, 
It suited well that lonely place. 
Far more than childhood's heart or face ; 
With curious stealth I ventured o'er 
The threshold, through the swinging door. 



THE DESERTED DWELLING. 125 

With wary steps and watchful eye, 
Half shrinking, yet unknowing why ; 
Till in the empty, echoing rooms 
I stood as 'mong the tombs. 

The grass grew on the rotting sill, 
The cricket on the hearth sung shrill, 
The chimney-stones grown o'er with mold 
Stood blacked by fires long dead and cold, 
Whose ashes lay as in an urn. 
Speaking of things that ne'er return ! 
Long webs hung from the mouldering beams, 
Where spiders drowsed their dull day dreams ; — 
But what and whence that sudden sound 
That fills the place around ! 

Lo, up where streaks of skyey blue 

The rent and ragged roof swam through, 

Against the rafters, east and west, 

A swallow band had built their nest ; 

Sole inmates fluttering restless there, 

They found no foe, and feared no snare ; 
12* 



126 THE DESERTED DWELLING- 

And warbled out so blithe and clear, 
It was a nameless charm to hear ; 

Pleasant, yet startling brake the sound 
Like laugh in burial ground. 

I thought of kindred faces dear, 
Who met, communed, and mingled here, 
Sweet children, forms whose daily feet 
Played round these floors with busy beat ; 
I saw them pass — I heard their tread, 
Shapes, shadows, sounds of beings fled ; 
Where dwell they now ? low winds may tell, 
And soon their memories speak as well ! 
I mused — and, weighed with sadness, crept 
The entry through, and wept. 

I thought, so the crushed heart and lone 

Will keep some joy, some former tone, 

Dear hopes, fond thoughts which round it cling. 

Like song-birds of its early spring, — 

Love messengers of Heaven that come 

To tenant fortune's ruined home. 

To scare dark hovering wings of ill, 

And keep it pure and holy still, 

When all else leave the friendless spot 
Forsaken and forgot. 



THE DESERTED DWELLING. 127 

I wandered home — the cool night fell : 
Rosemary fields shed balmy smell : 
From pastures rose the solemn churm 
Of insects : shone the winged worm : 
The pale moon o'er the meadow stood : 
The whippowill woke from the wood : 
Looked from mid-west Eve's pensive star, 
And spake of things unseen and far ; — 
While rushed from all the wizard scene 
Vague thoughts of all that's been. 

I slowly reached my own loved door, 
And on my heart the sad thought bore, 
' Our household, too, must meet such fate, 
Go, and their house be desolate !' 
Yet something came, that holy hour, 
Full on the heart with joy and power : 
Broad truth that flushed the young soul clear, 
And showed all distant glories near ; 

Now lives that scene, those thoughts of yore 
A presence evermore. 



TO AN OTTAWA GIRL. 



Fair Indian maid, young native queen, 
True Nymph or Dian of the wood ! 

Scarce yet is reached thy earliest teen, 
First flower of opening womanhood ! 

Of all beheld by day or dream, 

Came nothing such as thou dost seem. 

Thy speech is strange, thy manners wild, 
This scant, but these all beauty's dress : 

Shy modesty that shows the child, 

Yet touched with pride and stateliness ; 

And seems in all thy mien and tread 

A sachem's daughter, born and bred. 

Thy garb is quaint, but rich and rare, 
Bead-belt and gay quilled moccasin ; 

And shelled braids plaits thy raven hair ; 
Thy mantle wrought of feathered skin ; 

Bright tassels kilt or kirtle bind, 

And graceful flow thy locks behind. 



TO AN OTTAWA GIRL. 129 

That dress not vain, like city prude, 

Thou wearest, though as trimly shown ; 

That speech on all lips harsh and rude, 
Melts rich and sweetly through thine own : 

What joy to list thy wood-lays sung 

With those deep tones and bird-like tongue ! 

A charm unuttered round thee lies, 

Each gesture, look, a vague sweet spell, 

Thought, soul unread — yet no disguise. 
They're all and more than features tell ; 

And well befits that face and eye, 

Thy wild sweet name — Red Morning Sky ! 

'Mong huge rough forms, and faces grim, 
Thou look'st all gentler, lovelier still, 

A sylphen shape of slenderest limb. 
Too scant thy waving robes to fill : 

Our pale crew press their wondering gaze, — 

No wonder thine nor fear betrays. 

Here bounds thy life this small lone isle, 
Thy sire's rude lodge,the world to thee ; 

Thy lot to cheer it with thy smile. 

Kind Nature's nursling, bold and free ! 

To climb like roe the beetling cliff. 

And swan-like play thy fairy skiff"; 



130 TO AN OTTAWA GIRL. 

To watch the storm-cloud gathering far, 
Or track the fawn o'er morning dew ; 

To dance and sing at evening star 

With dusky mate the green wood through 

Then fall some red man's bride and slave, 

Few years, and find forgotten grave ! 

No Lady of the Lake could oar 

With skill like thine- that slight canoe; 

But swifter spi'ings our boat from shore, 
Thine fades o'er waters stern and blue ; 

Dark maid, farewell ! no more to see, 

Yet long shall I remember thee. 



NIAGARA 



Great matchless Flood ! thy thousand lakes and 
rivers 
Here met, plunge down these awful mountain 
steeps ; 
How 'neath their Titan tramp the firm earth quivers, 
And back with all her cliffs, astonished leaps ! 
Through heaven's dark halls the thunder wakes 
and sleeps, 
The storm roused ocean raves, and rests his hour ; 

But no repose comes to thy troubled deeps, 
Thou sleepless sentinel shouting from thy tower. 
To earth and sky the voice of thy stupendous 
power. 

Cities are gathering round thee, human hands 

Thy savage beauty tame, to mold their own ; 
Yet firm thy rock seat, sure thy kingdom stands, 

Thou reignest here chief monarch and alone. 

Now yon fair hills the sun crowns like a throne, 
Now sinks behind them in his shadowy fall, 

And round his rest the tents of eve are strown. 



132 NIAGARA. 

And night comes listening to thy sovereign call, 
As erst through old dim years, from solemn forests 
tall. 

I start from dreams, and hear the tempest roaring, 

Shudders each roof-beam, harsh the window jars ; 
I rise, gaze out, — and the fair sky is pouring 

The gentle light of all its glorious stars ! 

Sweet shine the orb of love and red haired Mars ; 
No wind ! and up yon vast .white tumbling sheet, 

Hangs her faint bow the Moon unstained with bars, 
And sees her trembling form beneath thy feet, 
Seeming to list the tale thy waters aye repeat. 

Wild dusky nations on thy shores have wandered. 
And loved, and fought, — pale armies joined in 
fray; 
And all have passed — and myriads come and pon- 
dered. 
Who now are gone, or soon must go, as they ! 
Still roar and foain thy broad waves green and 
gray, 
Still round thy misty brow the rainbows span, 

No power shall hush thy voice, thy waters stay, 
Telling thy strength how mightier far than man, 
Till thy small task is wrought in God's unbounded 
plan. 



NUMA AND EGERIA, 



I|oi/ 6e aveXoi y\a<pvpdv Beds I'lSs xal dvfip. 

Odyss. B. 5, 194. 

It was the olden, silent time, 

Just Numa's long and warless reign, 
When truth and worship banished crime, 

Nor bought sweet peace with blood or pain ; 
Where by a shady grot a spring 

Ran wimpling through a high dark grove, 
Alone the wise and pious king 

Would seek a nymph — no mortal love. 

When eve, o'er Rome's wild landscapes falling, 
Flushed wood and mountain darkly red. 

And solemn trees Heaven's winds were calling, 
The goddess came, with airy tread ; 

And all night's starry hours of sleeping. 
Sat they communing side by side, — 

One sweet and holy love-watch keeping, 

The earthly man and heavenly bride. 
13 



134 NUMA AND EGERIA. 

She whispered in his tranced ear, 

Of glorious truths — mysterious things ; 
His sight to grander views made clear, 

And lent his soul her seraph wings : 
Her sister muses came and sang 

Their warblings of unearthly word. 
Such strains as touched no other tongue, 

And erst few mortal ears had heard. 

And men revered the sage who brought them 

Pure draughts of wisdom's sweetest dew j 
All in Egeria's name he taught them, 

And ruled as none else, old or new : 
To God and Faith rich fanes he builded, 

Led men to feel the laws divine ; 
And love and awe that dark grove shielded. 

The muses' hallowed ground and shrine. 

And round the spot, as small first flowers 

Came o'er the cool sward's mossy green. 
And voices hymned the hidden Powers, 

Who made their haunt that sylvan scene ; 
Each year in slowly solemn train. 

High Priest and Vestal Maids would throng, 
And pay their worship and their strain. 

To sacred Faith and starry Song. 



NUMA AND EGERIA. 135 

So sage and bard sublime of feeling, 

Will oft from strife retire alone, 
To muse with Thought, high truths revealing 

From higher worlds to light their own : 
And such the nymph coy Contemplation, 

Seeks every pure and pensive mind ; 
And her in holy meditation. 

His love, his Bride of Heaven, shall find. 



JULIET— VOICE OF A SPIRIT, 



Thoitght'st thou of me ? — Fear not the voice thou 
hearest ; 
Beyond the sun, the starry deep far o'er, 
I've gained my home — I've found the lost and 
dearest : 
No more — the heart knows grief or wrong no 
more ! 

Its tender bloom found all too harsh and chilling, 
In that bleak world, and closed its leaves again ; 

Its sweetness nought of time could feel, and willing 
it sought the skies ere aught of earth might stain. 

Love was my Heaven, its first sweet star o'er shaded 
By clouding fate just as it looked on earth ; 

Think not in earthly gloom its light hath faded. 
In Heaven 'tis shining still, of heavenly birth. 



JULIET. VOICE OF A SPIRIT. 137 

My young heart saw its destined mate, and owned 
him ; 

No power might blind, no other form could fill ; 
The noble, brave and beautiful — it throned him 

My bosom's sovereign Lord thro' good and ill. 

That heart stood faithful, still with, strength un- 
shaken, 

'Neath hardest storms that fell to crush or fray ; 
Till by each kindred trust it held, forsaken, 

It sought the last — there was no other way ! 

Our souls were one, — mine could not stay behind him. 
His, given for Time and for Eternity; 

His parting spirit called, — I went to find him, — 
He stood, to ope the gates of bliss to me. 

Now there from mutual eyes of undreamed glory 
Communings full of truth and love we hold, 

Where forms all light and beauty grow not hoary, 
Joys still untried, affections never cold ! 

Hearts tried yet true in life, death may not sever ; 

True loves crossed there, join here but happier 

hand : 

So faithful live, wrong not thy soul, and never 

Doubt thou thy birth-right in the better land. 
13* 



TO THE EVENING STAR, 



"He saw Heaven blossom with a new born light, 
On which as on a glorious stranger gazed 
The golden eyes of Night." 

CrA-SHAW. 

Thou breakest thy veil of light, lone star, 

Woke from thy sweet day-dream ; 
Still following by dim wood far. 

And 'long the meadow stream ; 
Still with me where I'm lonely wending. 

And treasured fancies weave. 
Over the dark red waters bending. 

And the purple land of Eve. 

Thou comest into the silent sky, 
Like a love-thought in the mind, 

Turning thy fair and friendly eye 
On thy sister earth, so kind : 



TO THE EVENING STAR. 139 

There high, thy pensive love-watch keeping, 

Thou seem'st, bright one, to stay. 
Some gentle beauteous mourner weeping 

O'er the death-bed of the day. 

Far on like bark or lost bird driven, 

So like a living thing, 
All sailless, wingless, yet mild Even 

E'er faithfully following : 
Art thou to earth thy secrets telling. 

Unheard by mortal ear ? 
A world where human shapes are dwelling, 

Or spirits' happier sphere ? 

Unknown ! — but since the birth of Time 

In yon unbounded field. 
Thou hast toiled thy Master's task sublime, 

Bright mystery, still unsealed ! 
That one fair page all climes and ages, 

Have looked upon and read ; 
The high, the low, old seers and sages, 

The great, the vanished dead. 

What hearts have felt thy spell divine, 

And words of passion told, 
How many an eye all bright as thine, 

Gazed, that hath long been cold ! 



140 TO THE EVENING STAR. 

Still stiinest thou, sweet spot of union, 
Where souls may meet as one ; 

I look and seem to hold communion 
With kindred spirits gone. 

The dear ones Death away hath riven — 

Kind Faith, their mansion tell ! 
Look they from shining heights of Heaven, 

And know thy mysteries well ? 
E'en now I hear a far sweet hymning, 

I see them all appear, 
Forms, looks before my vision swimming 

Such as I loved them here. 



This hour, how many eyes, mild star, 

On thee deep musing pour ; 
Perchance like me, kind friends afar. 

Who soon will gaze no more ; 
E'en now I hear the cold winds blowing 

Over our graves so drear, 
I see spring grass and wild flowers growing 

As o'er lost ones year by year. 



TO THE EVENING STAR. 141 

Farewell, sweet star, sunk down the west : 

So sink we and forgot ! 
Tliou 'It rise and light my lonely rest, 

Though all else mark it not : 
Others will watch thee softly sinking. 

As I have watched, sky-gem. 
But will tender hearts of me be thinking, 

As I have thought of them ? 



THE SPIRIT'S IDENTITY, 



W HEN far in yonder silent sky 
The soul another home shall find, 

Looks then true Memory's pensive eye 
On all she loved and left behind ? 

Or is this death a rayless night 

Between the worlds of light and sin ; 

And the freed spirit left no sight, 

No thought of what it once hath been ? 

Ah no ! the ties which bound it here 

Still round its love must hold their chain ; 

A nobler power in purer sphere, 
Yet still its sameness must remain. 

If Heaven our earthly state should hide, 
And blot our passage thence from thought, 

Our being's self no more had died, 

If ne'er we'd been, or turned to naught ! 



THE spirit's identity. 143 

Heart cannot hold despair so chill, 
Faith will not doubt, but fondly deem 

There keeps the soul past feelings still, 
And scenes fresh as they first did seem. 



THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW. 



The herald tongue of midnight tolls ! 

A year hath gone — one more, one more ! 
Adown the past it voiceless rolls 

To join the thousands gone before. 

Not dead — the year is living still, 
Swift speeding as it first begun ; 

Not lost — its deeds fate cannot kill, 

Their power endures while years shall run. 

Not gone — 'tis we are hastening past, 

Its shores back-swimming from our eyes ', 

Still springs a new yeai', as the last 
Upon our trembling vision dies. 

Thus on, 'mid Nature's living tide, 

Race crowding race, from life we fare, 

The grave's dark gulf stands yawning wide, 
And we like leaves are dropping there. 



THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW. 145 

And fast to that dark goal we hie, 
Like a chill night old age steals on, 

Till sad we mark life's fading sky. 
And wonder how its light hath gone. 

So, as a sleeping waking dream. 
Are all the scenes we wander o'er ; 

How long the journeying way we deem — 
How moment-brief when 'tis no more ! 

Time dies not — old, yet hale and strong ; — 
His tracks are seen, his march is still ; 

Decay and Death he bears along. 
Dread ministers who work his will. 

Decay brings all to death, and strange ! 

Death gives a second biz'th to things ; 
Both are the toiling arms of Change, 

Whence life in forms unnumbered springs. 

And change is action : what were earth, 
Did Death not toil, kind laborer, there ? 

A sluggish waste, a lifeless dearth, 

A still-stand age, no thought could bear ! 
14 



146 THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW. 

Each step we tread, each breath we' ve drawn, 
Moves all the worlds, though thoughtless we ; 

A wave of power that pulses on, 
Still working through eternity. 

Nor less doth change her empire keep 
O'er the wide universe of mind : 

Each thought we utter ne'er shall sleep. 
But stamp some image on mankind. 

Ye, on thought's mountain-tops who stand. 
May send down springs of bliss or woe. 

To green or waste life's spirit-land. 
And good or ill must ever flow ! 

Oh ! be it ours such streams to send, 
As feed the soul with wisdom clear ; 

So Time and Death shall stand our friend. 
When we our course have finished here. 

1840-1 



MUSINGS 



What simplest things can stir the soul in its own 

mystic hour ! 
A sight, a taste, a scent, a sound — what spells of 

mightiest power ! 
What sweet revivings of. the gone, what scenes of 

fancied bliss. 
What sudden thoughts and feelings strange, as of a 

life ere this ! 

When comes o'er summer field or hill a sweet gust 

winnowing. 
Or from its solitude unseen some hermit bird doth 

sing ;— 
A piny wood, a distant mount, a water-fall can 

move 
All the soul's secret sympathies, its deep unuttered 

love. 



148 MUSINGS. 

When falling snows like scattered flowers drop calm 
o'er dale and hill, 

And tall trees rise a ghostly band, and the gloomy- 
day is still ; 

When the moon looks o'er the uplands white, or 
thro' the shadowy wood, 

And the glistening stars shine keenly down from 
their cold blue solitude ; 

Or heavy 'cross the night-glazed plain, when bleak 

winds storming go. 
Tramp the dark groves, or by the door in mournful 

cadence blow, — 
All chill without, yet in the heart what feelings 

warm upburn. 
What memories old and half forgot, like travelers 

far, return ! 

A cloud, a shade, a green-grown field, a star, a 
brook, a tree, 

The whisperings of the quiet mind, are all the world 
to me ; 

They have a primal language true, a deeper, sweet- 
er tongue. 

Than worded eloquence e'er spake, or Muse herself 
hath sung. 



MUSINGS. 149 

Thoughts, feelings high, still with me go, friends of 

my pilgrimage ! 
As once the nurse and guide of youth, so be the 

staff of age ; 
From the first home the statues still of the lost loved 

ones bear. 
And make all times a living now, without their grief 

as fair. 



14=" 



THE INDIAN SUMMER. 



From heaven the sun doth mildly pour 

The spirit of peace and rest ; 
And the warm air broods the still earth o'er, 

Like a dove her own sweet nest. 

Ah ! 'tis but the shadowy winding sheet 
O'er the passing year's decay ; 

But soft as the fall of a seraph's feet, 
The dying one steals away. 

Like a calm bright eve ere a stormy night, 
Her strength at its last faint hold, 

Wan nature puts on a smile all bright, 
Ere her face and her heart grows cold. 

So death o'er his beauteous victim stays ; 

And the loved one with kindling eyes. 
Cast up on her foe a last brief gaze, 

Then gently sinks down and dies. 



THE WEST WIND 



Thou comest, summer breeze, 
With life and music on the air ; 

I trace thee thro' those tossing trees, 
But Where's thy dwelling — where ? 

Yon green maize slowly swings 

To thee, and wide o'ershadowing come 

The clouds, on gray and silver wings, 
But neither is thy home. 

Thou walk'st the dreaming lake. 

And its dappled skies in bright rings flee, 

Like tinkling coins the shore-waves break, 
But they're no lodge for thee. 

Go, visit the sick man pale. 

And fan his fevered brain asleep, 

Then haste and lift yon flagging sail 
Along the weltering deep. 



152 THE WEST WINB. 

t 

Go, kiss that flower-girl fair, 
And blow her ringlets lovingly. 

And suck her posies fresh, and bear 
A sweeter balm to me. 

Go to the window-sill 

And softly touch the iEolian lyre, 
Dwell o'er its plaintive chords, and thrill 

My soul's with subtle fire. 

Then wander where it please, 

Thro' field, or dale or shady west ; 

The brooks and birds and humming bees 
Will lull me soon to rest. 

Blow thou at dawning light. 

Blue noon, or ruddy evening by, 

Or rove the starry woods at night — 
Thou goest a mystery. 

Yet gives yon glorious fire. 

Mild wind, thy gentle being birth, 

On wings of love that never tire, 
Heaven's messenger to earth. 



THE WEST WIND. 153 

Thy home is all around, 

Sweet summer child of light and air, 
Like God's own presence, felt, ne'er found, 

A Spirit everywhei'e ! 



TO SINGING 



Sing on, sing on, thou gentle maiden ! 

Those tender words, that sweet old strain, 
Whence thoughts like star-winged birds rich laden 

Flock from the past world home again. 

All blessed things of yore come thronging, 
Each grave of old with life new teems ; 

Bright fancies of the heart's young longing, 
High visions of its morning dreams. 

Deep memories cold and' hushed are waking, 
Fair scenes long vanished meet the eye ; 

One vista past and future breaking, 
And shadowings of eternity. 

The dead like shades from ruins hoary, 

I see them rise a silent band ; 
And all I've been a strange, dim story, 

Like moonlight o'er a mountain land. 



TO SINGING. 155 

I see them rise, the heroes olden, 

Who gave Time's sybil-leaves their fame ; 

The great, the good, whose memory holden, 
Stir noble hearts to win the same. 

I see them rise, the dear departed. 

Whom love hath missed and mourned so long ; 
The kind, the fair, the gentle-hearted, — 

Ah, why so soon broke ties so strong ? 

I hear their low and melting voices, 

Like waves along a lonely shore ; 
And the listening spirit half rejoices, 

Then starts, to feel — they'll come no more ! 

Then sing, fair maid ! while soft thy fingers 
Wake from the strings that winning spell ; 

So blest, the spirit fondly lingers 

Mid scenes where else 'twere sad to dwell. 



TO THE PIPING FROGS. 



" Much yet remains unsung." 

I hear your notes new- breaking, 

First prophets of the spring, 
Ere the slumbering earth is waking. 

Or the warm gale lifts its wing ; 
While the early birds are sleeping. 

And the hills lie cold and brown. 
Ere the first pale flower is peeping. 

Or the bright rains glitter down. 

When the land grows dim with shadows, 

Ye sing from pools and streams, 
Lone voices of the meadows, 

Like sounds in vanished di'eams ; 
Shrill through the deep air swelling 

A strange and mystic chime. 
As sybil Memory telling,. 

Tales of the olden time. 



TO THE PIPING FROGS. 157 

Wild Naiads of the waters, 

Ye lull the songless night, 
Where the wildered river loiters 

In a deep trance darkly bright ; 
And the solemn woods hang listening, 

While winds no breathing move, 
And sleeps the starred air glistening 

In its sabbath-rest of love. 

When the brooding storm is lying 

All grim in the western sky, 
And clouds, like dark birds flying. 

With a wailing shriek go by ; 
Clear o'er the misty mead-lands 

Your mingling chant ye raise. 
And the shadowy slopes and head-lands 

Grow live with the thrilling lays. 

So, lone ones, ye've been sounding 

Thro' many a long dark year. 
With Nature's wilds surrounding. 

To none but Nature's ear ; 
Ere human accent cheerful 

Rang through the gloomy wood, 

And but brute echoes fearful 

Broke earth's first solitude. 
15 



158 TO THE PIPING FROGS. 

By Eden's green bank'd rivers, 

When earth and time were young, 
While slept the wild song-givers, 

Life's infant birth ye sung : 
When the deluge earth o'er climbing, 

In its deep grave buried all, 
Sole mourners, ye were chiming 

A dirge o'er her funeral. 

No more o'er hills and mountains 

The sylvan Dryad sings. 
The dwellers of her fountains 

Are voiceless, vanished things ; 
Round shores of fabled story 

Her Nereids haunt no more, 
Yet from her wrecks of glory 

Ye're singing as of yore. 

Welcome ! new joy still bringing, 

Ye minstrels of all climes ; 
In Nature's halls aye singing. 

Free singers of all times ! 
Nor vain — the fount unsealing 

Whence thoughts like music rise. 
Stirring the chords of feeling 

In the soul's deep sympathies. 



TO THE PIPING FKOGS. 159 

Year after year returning 

Gives many a sweet sound forth ; 
Like heaven-drawn incense burning, 

They rise and pass from earth : 
The harp its voice must keep not, 

Soon the bard's song-breath is o'er ; 
But ye, night minstrels, sleep not. 

When these are heard no more. 



WILLIMANTIC WATER. 



Fair Willimantic ! gentle stream ! 

In beauty winds your meadow'd way, 
Still resting like a happy dream, 

Still ever gliding far away. 

The same bright river as of yore, 

When down to drink the wild deer came, 

Or red man roamed thy forest shore. 

And called thee by thy sweet wild name. 

And thou, old stream, art lovely still, 
As when I played by thee a child, 

When spring sat green on every hill. 

And o'er thee wept bright clouds and smiled 

When angling by thy grassy rim, 

I loitered out the westering sun. 
Watching thy bright-scaled fishlings swim — 

Hard sport ! and snared them one by one ; 



WILLIM ANTIC WATER. 161 

Till evening wove her reddening vest, 

And lay thy glassy waters dumb, 
Holding the star'd sky in their breast ; 

Or rose the moon to guide rae home. 

How up and down thy morning wave 
White fogs their nightly host outspread, 

Till slow before the sun so brave, 
The ghostly camp broke up and fled. 

How, 'long thy meads the scythe I flung. 
And weltered thro' the burning day ; 

Thy smooth green banks with windrows strung, 
And snuffed the fragrant breathing hay. 

Yet thou art changed ! I list no more, 
When'er the brewing storm is near. 

Thy cataract's dim and distant roar 
Borne thro' the heavy atmosphere. 

The hand of Art hath worked thee wrong, 

And bound thee slave to selfish trade ; 

Tamed is thy current free and strong. 

And broke with wheels thy wild cascade. 
15* 



162 WILLIMANTIC WATER. 

Thou'rt changed ! — the noisy bustling town 
Hath risen from thy rocky side ; 

Now floods thy once green meadows drown, 
Dull, dark and deep, thy waters glide. 

Yet thee I'll think the same sweet stream, 
And love thee for the olden day ; 

Still resting like a happy dream. 
Still ever gliding far away ! 



THE CLOUDS 



Light wing'd aerial voyagers ! 

How tranquil on ye sail, 
Like troops of sylphs slow floating 

In the west wind's gentle gale ; 
Or with white pinions folded, 

Ye sleep on Heaven's calm breast, 
When the languid breeze at noontide 

Has lulled itself to rest. 

Fair daughters of old Ocean, 

With steps unseen ye climb 
The crystal walls of ether. 

To rove its fields sublime :, 
Shook from your ebon caskets, 

Bright liquid gems ye shower, 
And carpet earth's glad landscapes, 

In robe of green and flower. 



164 THE CLOUDS. 

Ye weave a crimson canopy, 

With fringe of braided gold, 
Round Phoebus' flaming chariot, 

To his hall of slumber rolled ; 
Or framed in eastern firmament. 

With pearls dipt in his beams. 
Your bridge the skies proud spanning. 

In gaudy brilliance gleams. 

Then gay romantic cities 

On airy plains ye build, 
Strange towers, and wizard castles. 

Which the smiles of evening gild ; 
Their burnished spires and battlements 

In gorgeous state arise, 
Till the gale like conquerer coming. 

The glittering pageant flies. 

Not thus when darkly mustering, 

Tempestuous strife ye wage, 
And furious rolled through heaven, 

In storming tumult rage ; 
Roused from your gloomy chambers. 

Hoarse-throated thunders fly. 
In their fiery cars hash rattling 

Across the aff*righted sky. 



THE CLOUDS. 165 

O'er earth and vexed waters, 

Swift messengers of wrath, 
With fear and death ye traverse 

Along your dismal path ; 
When the black and fell tornado 

Bursts from your yawning caves, 
Ploughs seas in mountain furrows. 

And whelms the bark in waves. 

When the wild night-storm is breaking, 

Like spectre ships ye sweep, 
In sable squadrons scudding 

O'er the blue celestial deep j 
While yon far watch-lights burning, 

Through your dark-rent masses glare. 
And faint the tempest-spirits sing 

In the gusty midnight air. 

But lo ! when skies are purpled 

With flush of virgin dawn, 
All from your clear fields vanished, 

Like fairy shapes ye're gone : 
So earth's bright joys are fleeting, 

So fade its glooms away, 
Fit emblemed by your transientness, 

Ye beings of a day ! 



THE HARVEST MOON, 



Thou eom'st, sweet traveler of the night, 
With silent step and presence true, 

O'er fair blue realms of starry light, 
And fields of silvern dew. 

Thin clouds around thy rising thrown, 
Like blossoms ope and fall away. 

And night's dark mantle lies o'er strown, 
In all its rich array. 

Along yon distant mountain-heads. 
And every woodland's eastern side, 

Thy smile a gracious fullness sheds. 
As earth beheld her bride. 

Now looketh forth that glorious face 

Skyward as thou would'st mount above ; 

Yet stays each eve thy lingering pace, 
As earth did win thy love. 



THE HARVEST MOON. 167 

So thou the shepherd boy of yore 
Didst visit with thy sweetest beams, 

And give his mountain slumbers moi'e 
Than earthly love or dreams. 

O lone one ! couldst thou once come near, 
With all thy world of secret things, 

Strange cities, highlands wild and drear, 
Shapes walking or with wings ! 

And yet thou movest on thy way. 

Far unapproachable and still, 
Flooding with silent light the bay. 

Or watching on the hill. 

Full in thy light the corn-fields sleep, 

Or wave their blades and rustling plumes, — 

Rich fruits which warless hands shall reap, 
Wealth of spring's whole perfumes. 

And soon beneath thy broad lit dome. 
Will happy voices come with song. 

The busker's hymn of harvest home, 
And nights serene and Ions'. 



THE SNOW BIRD 



The landscape is robed in a white frozen shroud, 
The tempest of winter howls sullen and loud, 
And shakes the bare trees as it whistles along 
Where spring groves re-echoed the whippowill's song, 

No longer the roses soft blushing are seen, 
Nor flowerets bright mantled in raiments of green, 
The tall aged oak murmurs sad on the hill. 
And soft gushing fountains in slumber are still. 

But hark ! the wild snow-bird exultingly sings, 
As o'er the bleak fields gaily chirping he springs, 
Forsaken yet cheerful, content though alone, — 
For all the sweet songsters of summer have flown. 

Blest bird ! forth thou roamest all reckless and free, 
The cold wintry blast hath no terrors for thee ; 
While all things around thee with gloom are im- 
pressed, 
No sadness e'er darkens thy own happy breast. 



THE SNOW-BIRD. 169 

Then welcome, blithe stranger ! still chant forth 

thy voice, 
Teach my spirit, like thine, amid glooms to rejoice, ', 
Enliven the desert, last bird of the year. 
For brief is the day of thy pilgrimage here. 

Fair spring soon shall finish drear winter's cold 

reign, 
And spread out her blossoms in beauty again, 
Bright Phcebus regain his meridian day, — 
And thou with thy snow-wreaths must vanish away. 



16 



THE FAIRIES' MIGRATION 



Away ! away ! the moon shines bright, 
And gilded skies serenely glow ; 

Through airy fields we take our flight, 
Far o'er the slumbering world below. 

We quit our once loved sylvan seat, 
The shadowy vale and lonely glade, 

Where oft with silvery voices sweet, 
At balmy eve we danced and played. 

We leave our wild enchanted bow,ers, 
Arrayed in robes of fairest green, 

The velvet lawns and beds of flowers, 
Where we by day reposed unseen. 

The summer 's past, — we go to find 
Some clime beneath a happier sky. 

Where winds are mild and seasons kind. 
And spring's fair blossoms never die. 



THE fairies' migration. 171 

Where fields in verdant garb are dight, 
And groves forever green appear ; — 

There songsters dwell with fond delight, 
And revel through the blooming year. 

On silken wings we swiftly speed, — 

Our flight must end ere glimpse of day ; 

Then will we seek some emerald mead. 
Embowered in wood-lands far away. 

With mirth the hours we'll here beguile. 
Along the dew-bespangled ground, 

Beneath the pale moon's cloudless smile, 
Sporting in circling mazes round. 

But when drear winter's reign is o'er, 
And flowerets gem each smiling plain, 

Our former home we'll seek once more. 
And wanton 'mong its bowers again. 



AN INDIAN SUMMER DAY. 



How fair the smoky morning light is falling 

Along the many-colored wood ; 
And loud the mustering crows their mates are calling 
Through fields of solitude. 

Up climbs the sun, pale o'er the village sleeping, 

Like bird with dewy folded wing, 
And roof and spire in drowsy mist-light steeping, — 
Heaven's soft breath slumbering. 

In the warm East the sweet-tongued larks ai'e 
springing, 
Pouring their souls in childish glee, 
While to each other earth and sky are singing 
A last faint jubilee. 

Yon dark pines rise like funeral mourners, keeping 

The hush of breathless silence all, 
Till soft winds touch, like tender memories sweep- 
ing,— 
They sigh and bright drops fall. 



AN INDIAN SUMMER DAY. 173 

How silvery floats the blue-bird's cheerful twitter, — 

Then screams amain the jabbering jay : — 
How bright by reedy banks rills lazily glitter, 
Wimpling their leaf-chok'd way. 

The forest far, the hilly landscape yonder, 

Seem weltering in an airy sea ; 
Heaven stoops, as whispering to the charmed world 
under 
A love-tale winningly. 

Thro' the blue haze the flocking clouds are driven, 

Or halt along the upper deep, 
To wonder o'er the things of earth and heaven, 
Or dream them in their sleep. 

Sing, children of the wood ! yet grief is stealing 

Through all the blitheness of your song, 
A secret pensiveness, as ye were feeling 
Ye cannot tarry long ! 

Lo ! round the horizon's rim is darkly reaching 

A dim funereal pall ; 

Loud, low, or mute, streams, winds and woods are 

preaching, — 

"So pass earth's loved ones all !" 
16* 



174 AN INDIAN SUMMER DAY. 

Now westering stoops the sun, but fondly dallies 

With things his spring-face loved so well ; 
Bare glades and timber-slopes and shaded vallies, — 
They feel the year's farewell ! 

On hedge and cultured ground and opening meadow, 

And brooding o'er the willowy stream, 
Dwells the warm light, the air-shade of a shadow, 
A spirit in its dream ! 

Prone to his rest the sickly sun is speeding, — 

Long ray-streaks point his journey down, 
Like golden roads by seraphs trod, far leading 
To yon celestial town ! 

Gaze towards the pale wan glare dim windows 
glistening, 
While sounds, as thro' an empty room. 
Come strangely loud, and trees and all stand listening, 
As those that wait their doom. 

Now o'er brown ridges comes dark-mantled even, 

Red shadowings wrap the waves to rest, 
And, moored along the golden ports of heaven, 
Yon fire-clouds line the west. 



AN INDIAN SUMMER DAY. 175 

And hark ! while rose-wing'd hours their leave are 
taking 
Along the magic tinted hills, 
Throbs the lone bell, the mellow air scarce breaking, 
Like a last heart beat — then still ! 

Peace, calm sweet day ! with dusky night now 
meeting ; 
Earth lulls beneath her starry tent ; 
So gently pass and meet with death, when fleeting, 
Mine own life-day is spent! 

Tuscaloosa, Ala., Dec. 2, 1842. 



NEW YEAR'S MORNING. 



On yonder line of hill-tops white, 
The late risen winter sun is peeping ; 

And broad in yellow-crimsoned light, 
The land just stirs its long dull sleeping. 

A dreamy torpor weighs all o'er ; 

Bright spires each eave and rock are fringing ; 
The frozen breath steams thick before. 

And frost like hidden fire is singeing. 

A hundred roofs now glint in gold, 

And climbing smokes with blue sky mingle ; 
While through the still air keen and cold, 

The distant sleigh-bells softly jingle. 

And every sound rings sharp and clear, — 
The drowsy cocks their morn- watch calling, 

Kine faintly lowing far and near, 

And now and then geese harshly squalling. 



NEW year's morning. 177 

Spreads all around one field of snow, 
A sea of silvery sparkles gleaming ; 

Caws from that copse the rousing crow, 
And here the restless jay is screaming. 

Adown the cliff the frozen rill. 

Like stiffened snake, no more doth tumble ; 
The trees look dreary from the hill, 

And the clogged mill forgets to rumble. 

Now briskly plays the wood-man's axe, 

From door-side and through forest ringing ; 

And merry school-boys beat their tracks ; 
And fowls by the warm barn are singing. 

Now swells the cry of hunting hounds, 
And rising winds the woods are shaking ; 

With hum of life the village sounds. 

And half the sluggish folks are waking. 

January 1, 1844. 



TREES. 



The sky is fair as a lake of swans, no shade its 

white clouds fling, 
And earth is singing in her joy, and free is every 

thing : 
We'll go and ramble through the fields, and breathe 

the breath of June, 
And seat us 'neath the chesnut trees, and with their 

leaves commune. 

We'll go and talk with rustling woods, tall pines and 

shady oaks. 
The world's primeval people, those old familiar 

folks. 
Still living and still speaking in that same olden 

tongue. 
The tales that winds of thousand years from their 

thousand lips have wrung. 



179 



They teach us ancient oracles from Nature's hidden 
scrolls ; 

Chanting sweet accents to our ears, deep lessons to 
our souls ; 

They join old ages with the new, and tell their by- 
gone lore. 

They bring us solemn tidings from the vanished 
world of yore. 

And still each hour that primal speech with passing 

Time they hold, 
Lisp to the dews, chime to the rains, as in the days 

of old ; 
And write the record of the years within their 

storied rings. 
And watch the cradle and the grave of man and 

mortal things. 

Old giants of the mountains, their cloudy peaks they 

climb. 
And nearer Heaven than aught of Earth uplift their 

heads sublime, 
To drink the first young gush of day, and bathe in 

the golden west. 
Hold converse with the starry ^kies, or dream in 

solemn rest ! 



180 



Up towering in their lordly strength, fed by the soil 

and sun, 
While through their veins, 'bove highest spring, the 

subtle waters run ; 
And like that kind sage Titan old, they bring the fire 

to man. 
And draw its thunders on their heads and help him 

all they can. 

They yield him shade, and flower and fruit — yea, 

all their harvest dower ; 
Their bodies for his life they give, and serve him 

every hour ; 
They nurse their sweet-tongued children to cheer 

his heart with song. 
And bear him over lazid and wave in faithful arms 

and strong. 

They grow a social brotherwood, so calm and firm 
and slow, 

And kindly shield each other from shock or over- 
throw y 

Could we but read their history, and hear their con- 
verse strange. 

And know what silent sympathies each hour they 
interchange ! 



TREES. 181 

They wear full meek their honors when hours of 

fortune feed, 
And bear with heart bleak winter's storms, like 

strong men in their need ; 
They bide their time of changeful lot, bearing its 

weal or woe, 
With dignity and fortitude, which man were wise to 

show. 



17 



THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. 



Sweet children of the meadow-land, 

By sunny bank or hill, 
How rock ye in the zephyrs bland, 

And sleep when all is still ! 

What dress of loveliest green ye wear ! 

No spun or woven fold, 
Yet monarchs own no robe so fair 

Of silken woof and gold. 

Communing with your sister flowers. 

Ye know nor care nor sigh ; 
Born 'neath clear skies and summer hours. 

With them ye shine and die. 

Your food and life Heaven's full warm light 
Which paints your tints so gay. 

Ye miss when gone your parent's sight. 
And ye no longer stay. 



THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. 183 

But, whispering to your slumbering dust, 

Heaven calls you, and ye rise ; 
So rise and perfect shine the just, 

Beneath unfading skies. 



TO THE WHIPPOWILL. 



Lone hermit bird of darksome hour, 

Unheard, unseen by day. 
What soul of song, what spell of power 

Pours through thy melting lay ! 

When all the minstrels of the wood 
Their latest songs have sung, 

Thou giv'st the voiceless solitude 
A sweet and tender tongue. 

When day's last steps the hill-top leave, 
And cot and field grow dim, 

From shadowy wood at rest ye weave 
Your old pathetic hymn. 

That ancient hymn, and sung so long. 
Since shadowy days of yore. 

It comes like some forgotten song. 
That wakes to life once more. 



TO THE WHIPPOWILL. 185 

Welcome sweet bird ! Spring's darling child ! 

No nymph of Grecian dream 
E'er woke a chant more sweet and wild 

From haunted shade or stream. 

While moon and stars the valley fill 

With soft and pensive light, 
Still do those lonely echoes thrill 

The solemn heart of night. 

And when the tender night-queen smiles, 

The dark tree-tops above, 
So sweet the scene thy lay beguiles, 

'Twould seem her song of love. 

And when all earth's sweet voices fade. 

Beneath some sacred grove. 
Oh might my silent bed be made, 

Thy song and heaven above ! 



17 



TO A GROUP OF CHILDREN. 



Small men and women blossoming, 

Types of a golden age, 
Of Heaven's first children in their spring, 

And Eden's heritage ! 

Ye seem new-flown from some bright sphere, 

On earth awhile to play ; 
I hark your airy tones, and fear 

Ye thence might soar away. 

Yet human shapes so fair, so young. 

Sweet grace untrained of art ; 
God's language fills each warbling tongue, 

His smile each face and heart. 

And smiles on all your glad hearts shed. 

And love deny to none ; 
Here doubt no cold distrust hath bred, 

Undimmed hope's morning sun. 



TO A GROUP OF CHILDREN. 187 

Ye have not learned, 'tis all unwise 
Your whole sweet selves to show ; 

Untaught that prudence is disguise, 
Ye tell all truth ye know. 

Pure ones ! your feelings all unfeigned, 

Your souls untouched by Time, 
Ye keep first innocence unstained. 

First simple faith sublime. 

Such once the Holy Saviour blessed, 

Such we, if blessed must be ; 
And they are greatest, wisest, best, 

Who most resemble ye. 

I fain would take you to my heart 

With full and strong caress ; 
So life's dry springs one gush might start 

Of former blessedness. 



UNHEARD MUSIC 



This world hath many voices of joy and grief and 

fear, 
And many more far sweeter which we may never 

hear. 
No pulse, or stir, or motion, but wakes some kindred 

sound, 
Lost in itself, or vanishing, in depth of distance 

drowned. 

Were but our senses finer, what utterings every 

breath ! 
The whole wide earth one jubilee of life or dirge 

of death ! 
The universe an organ vast of endless pitch and 

tone, 
Still night and day moved by the will of the Eternal 

One. 



UNHEARD MUSIC. 189 

All Nature at her secret toil, accretions and decays, 
Forever singeth as she works in all her myriad ways ; 
Flowers chant to one another — dews sing to tuneful 

grass, 
Air-pulsings beat to the marching hours, though we 

hear no footsteps pass. 

Each plant and tree and breathing form, all noiseless 
though they grow. 

Their frames with finer pulse and spring in harmo- 
nies out-flow ; 

The rain-drops through the earth's veins deep, or 
when on misty wing 

They mount far up the warm blue sky, their cease- 
less carol sing. 

What swarming worlds of living things are humming 

while we sleep. 
Dim churm of strange unearthly tone throughout 

the sounding deep ! 
What chant of unseen atoms quick swimming the 

solar beams ! 
What waves of light e'er flowing on in swift 

melodious streams ! 



190 UNHEARD MUSIC. 

Fair primal Light ! could we but list the purling of 

thy springs, 
Clear as we see thy thrilling touch give all their 

hues to things, 
When pours its gushing melody in the white flood of 

day. 
Or swell the coral harmonies that in the sunset play ! 

On some far shore of Heaven might we with ears 

celestial stand, 
And list to that immortal choir yon planetary band, 
In thunder-chime, now loud, now low, as far or near 

they run. 
Still wind their music-march around their mighty 

head, the Sun : 

And catch the hymns of farther spheres now clearly 

sounding by, 
Now soft pathetic murmurings just gathered ere they 

die, 
Sweet as the last faint tones that breathe from closing 

lips so dear, — 
Oh might we know, ye glorious worlds, if souls 

your music hear ! 



LIGHT 



Celestial Light ! Immortal element ! 

Boundless and beautiful, — broad, deep, sublime ; 
The outflows of thy shining flood are sent 

Beyond all scope of thought to sound or climb ; 

Revealer of all things of space and time, 
Creator sole of motion, life and sense, 
God's messenger — eternal effluence ! 

Bright presence, ever round us near or far, 
Filling the depths of the expanding skies, 

Beyond the circuit of the utmost star, — 

Heaven's countless multitude to mortal eyes. 
Weaving grand interchange of fall and rise, 

Slumbering by day and journeying through the night. 

Aye stemming thy vast deep forever calm and bright ! 



STANZAS. 



Through the sunshine after fallen showers, 

Cometh a trim and happy lass, 
With her rosy hands among the flowers. 

And her small feet in the grass ; 
By meadowy banks where goeth a river 
In the lull of its own sweet music ever. 

And softly around her winds descending, 
Breathe in her ear their tenderest things ; 

And the loving sky stoops kindly bending. 
To woo with thousand visitings ; 

Unheeding all, yet sought of all — alone. 

She singeth on her low sweet undertone. 



TO A SINKING SHIP, 



The gallant bark plows on her way, 
'Mid waves her tossed sides lashing, 

Through the winds that howl for their fated prey, 
And the fired sky o'er her crashing. 

Still hard, like a strong man in despair. 
She's struggling, heaving, straining ; 

Now staggers bare through the stormy glare, 
While the foes on her strength are gaining. 

Her wounded side through every pore 

The gurgling sea is drinking. 
And 'mid the gloom to her deep dark tomb 

The gallant one is sinking. 

Like a true-souled chief ye battled long 
'Gainst the foes that gathered o'er ye ; 
Then vanquished sank, still battling strong, 

On the field of your pride and glory. 

18 



SOLITARY MUSINGS. 



Sweet star, to visit me from thy far dwelling, 
Looking my window thro' with eye so bright ! 

Couldst thou but send the thoughts my bosom 
swelling 
To kindred ones with thy mild loving light ! 

Dark wind, that by my door so solemn speakest 
In that grave voice a world of sad sweet things ! 

Thro' the wide land to every roof thou seekest, 
Oh might'st thou waft my wishes on thy wings ! 

Short life ! broad earth ! how small and fixed our 
places ; 

How few the boldest, busiest feet explore ; 
What eyes of tenderest soul, what winning faces. 

Meet, look, flit by us, and are seen no more ! 



SOLITARY MUSINGS. 195 

What kindred hearts for fellowship are pining — 
The known, the unknown, scattered far and wide ; 

They 've heard that wind, and mark'd yon bright 
friend shining, 
My love 's with them wherever they abide. 

Fair forms, fair souls, in town or cottage pleasant, 
By shadowy wood, or vale, or mountain lone. 

Could but like thought, our person be all-present ! — 
Fond dream of youth, which manhood loves to 
own. 

How then might loving spirits meet and mingle, 
Now never met, or soon to part in fear, 

Mismated mourn, or seek, self-hermits single, 

In Heaven communings which they find not here ! 



TO MY SOUL 



Voices grand, forever ! never ! 

Soul, thy doom and duty call ! 
Earnest then be thine endeavor, 

More than to redeem thy fall ; 
Labor ! God's immortal lever, 

Made and moves and measures all. 

Let the work of Heaven's assigning 
On thy front immortal shine : 

Why should doubt or vain repining 
Blanch a countenance divine ; 

When God's light is on thee shining, 
And his universe is thine ! 

Soul, awake ! God's trump is sending 
Summons lo the battle-field : 

Evil hosts with Truth contending, 
Claim the buckler, sword and shield 

Better fall, the Right defending. 
Than survive thy self to yield ? 



TO MY SOUL. 197 

Lo, comes on the storm of trial ; 

Prove thy power and pedigree ! 
Fire from Heaven's avenging vial 
_ Falls on those who faint or flee ; — 
But on faith and self-denial 

Crowns of immortality. 
18* 



CHILDREN IN HEAVEN, 



'TwAS a wise faith meet and touching, 
Of the manly Northern mind, 

That in heaven to little children 
Is the fitting task assigned, 

Still to scatter the young blossoms. 

Over earth by every thing, 
As the springs returning season 

Comes with beauteous visiting. 

Stooping light from flowery pathways, 
Strewed they hill and mead and plain ; 

Soft and guileless as the sun-clouds 
Shed their offerings of rain. 

And to all men toiling under, 

Welcome came their gifts of love ; 

For like birds from sky- ward singing, 
Brought they tidings from above : 



CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 199 

Gladdening earth with blessed foretaste, 

As her mortal hours went by, 
Of that land where flowers unfading 

Spring and bloom immortally. 



SEEKING A NAME, 



" Si chartae sileant quod bene feceris, 
Mercedem tuleris." Hor. Car. 8. 4. 

Dost thou toil, poor heart, to win remembrance, 
Shuddering at the thought, — ' To be forgot V 

Showeth well such longing, thy resemblance 
To the power that dieth not. 

Seek'st thou hidden good, — Wealth, Honor, Beauty? 

Then toil on, but wouldst thou not, in vain, 
Seek them in the high, straight path of duty, 

Else thy blessings prove thy bane. 

Wealth hath lofty soul in dust degraded, 
Honor wrought its own and other's scourge, 

Beauty lured its child too far, and faded, 
Early sung its own sad dirge. 



SEEKING A NAME. 201 

Not within but through these, seek thy treasure, 
Needful means to reach a nobler end ; 

And if wisely thou thy sphere wilt measure, 
Means shall staff and passage lend. 

What were every prize of thy ambition, 

Had no lot but thine on earth been thrown ? 

Learn, the happiness of thy condition. 
Springs and ends in love alone. 

Love, than aught on earth, sublimer, greater, — 
So shall hope be nigh, thy striving strong ; 

Ever present thy immortal nature, 

Guide to right, and guard from wrong. 

Could man climb the starry walls of heaven, 
Read yon far worlds' glorious mysteries well, — 

Joyless, vain, were all the knowledge given, 
Could he none the story tell. 

By what bond of sweet and subtile union. 
Love all human hearts in one hath wrought, 

Giving, asking sympathy, communion. 
Mingling soul, exchanging thought ! 



202 SEEKING A NAME. 

Each thought uttered, acted, think thy spirit's 
Living seed for endless harvests sown ; 

Fruit of bliss or bale vi^hich man inherits, 
Reaps in years and worlds unknown. 

In that higher life where thou art speeding, 
What were human fame from human wo ? 

Oh, what joy to view some bruised heart bleeding, 
Healed by fruits which thou didst sow ! 

What the joy to see thy fellow mortal, 

Happier made by toil and teachings thine, 

Nobler, nearer those bright promised portals 
Of their destiny divine. 

What though from the earth thy memory molder, 
There thy deeds — ^thy self will still live on ; 

Then take heart, and struggle purer, bolder, — 
These will work when thou art gone. 

So shall grief nor grudge thy spirit canker, 
Pleasure dull, pride blind, nor power betray ; 

Strong heart thy bark, and trust in God thy anchor, 
Faith thy star to brighter day. 



TIME AND TIDE. 



By busy day, by dreaming night, 

Post our fleet hours in soundless tread ; 

And still with viewless spade and light, 
Gray Time is digging us a bed. 

Death's quiver hides ten thousand darts, 
Thick speeds their shapeless flight along, 

Each marks a prey from human hearts, 
The archer's arm is dim, but strong. 

And oft and sudden at our side. 
Our life-mates feel the silent blow, 

Whose days seemed surest long to bide, — 
Love's youngest, dearest — but they go ! 

And still the work goes wasting on, 
Each moment ends some mortal's day, 

And fast as we one breath have drawn, 
Another gasps his own away. 



204 TIME AND TIDE. 

Each moment is a courier sped, 
Bearing a blind, but sure decree ; 

Hours count their footsteps by the dead, 
Life's sand-glass for eternity. 

Some sudden chance, some secret bane, 
Waits in our path to strike our doom ; 

Fate still new ways her last hath slain — 
The ways are countless to the tomb. 

Earth still is sounding funeral tones, 
Borne faint to watchful Fancy's ear ; 

Sighs, wailings, shrieks and dying groans — 
Each wind their mournful messenger. 

While pomp and pride hold revel there, 

Dark, yonder, winds the church-yard throng j 

And slow knells load the solemn air, 

While Pleasure trills her thoughtless song. 

Sweet Nature ! harp of varied strings. 
And tuned to notes of joy and pain. 

Nor less than Mirth, sad Sorrow sings, 
Though deeper breaks the grieving strain. 



TIME AND TTOE. 205 

For still each good some misery breeds, 

As light a shadow ever nears, 
Each throb of bliss, a bosom bleeds, 

And smiles scarce number human tears. 

But light from shade doth brighter grow, 
And misery brings her good in turn ; 

So hearts must feel the pang of wo, 
The thrill of purest joy to learn. 

Then let not the blind soul repine, 
At pain that makes her pleasure more, 

Nor hope fear death, a dark drawn line, 
That parts from this some brighter shore. 

19 



SONNETS, 



REVERIES. 
I. 

Since first I met that radiant face, 

And heard those lips of tenderest tone, 
My soul as fill'd with God's rich grace, 

New light unto itself hath grown ; 

Better the world without I've known, 
And better learned the world within ; 

Life's joys and beauties round me strown 
To choose, and shun its blight and sin ; 
To see all things a perfect whole, 

And perfect each that fervently 
Toils, hopes and loves, with heavenwai'd soul, 

Each hour more noble, pure and free ; 
Dear maiden, to thy charm I owe. 
Such faith above, such joy below. 



SONNETS. 207 



II. 



Thou cam'st, sweet vision of my earliest dreaming, 
With thy spring face and earnest loving eyes, 
And voice of rich, mysterious melodies, 

Thy bright hair from thy high pure forehead stream- 
ing ; 
And all things round thee seemed of Eden skies, 

Steeped in the slumber of ambrosial air, 

Through which young souls like burning perfumes 
rise. 

And dream of all that's holy, great and fair : 

Thee child of loveliness and grace of motion, 
My spirit saw, and knew thee for its own, — 

Touched with all feelings like a wakened ocean 
Which a clear wind of morning hath o'erblown : 

Thou'rt gone, and lone I walk a world of care, 

Yet seek thee still, and find thee everywhere. 



SPRING.— EVENING. 



Hid all day long, the evening sun comes breaking 
O'er waters and green hills of sweet spring time, 

His bright descent to earth majestic making, — 
So came Apollo in the world's first prime ; 



208 SONNETS. 

And every woodland haunt lends welcome chime, 
And sky and wave soft images unfold, 

Utterings that come with breathing of old rhyme, 
Shapes love hath known or faith waits to behold ; 
Renews the present the departed old. 

And still a fairer future promising ; — 
All emblemed by this sun which paints with gold 

Sweet Nature's store of every beauteous thing : 
So, love and faith and patient hope shall wake, 
Robed in the glories which their blessings make. 



SPRING.— MORNING. 
Hail, blessed day ! spring woods new robes are wear- 

Flung o'er them by the sunny breath of May j 
Gardens and orchard grounds their blooms are bear- 
ing. 
To the soft winds that drink their life away. 
Hark to the birds and waters happily singing 

In a love dream, where ridgy pinelands wave, 
While in the distance sloping showers are bringing 
Food for young flowers which late to earth they 
gave. 



SONNETS. 209 

How sweet to sit watching sunlight and shadow, 
Brooding, or passing o'er the green hill-side. 
Brighter and darker 'long the cornfields wide, 

Now 'cross the stream that veins the grassy meadow : 
Look on the earth, the bright blue sky, and see 
How life springs from and seeks its Deity ! 

Tuscaloosa, April 26, 1842. 



QUESTIONINGS. 
I. 

Where shall we find our lost ones ? Vacant air 

Fills where the beautiful once filled and moved 
New forms as noble come, y et none that wear 

The look, the sameness of the once beloved. 
Shall e'er the lost be found ? O, when or where. 

In the wide infinite of tide and things. 
Shall aught bring back to longing sigh and prayer 

The presence true of former vanishings ? 



19* 



210 SONNETS. 

Misgivings di*ear ! The Silence saith — no more 
From the void deep ; Time doth the old renew, 

Not reproduce the old : O never more 

Will the dead past return with sameness true, 

But changed and bettered still Time rolleth on ; 

What gain to keep the dull round overgone ? 



II; 

Then meet we ne'er our lost ones ? Faith serene 

From thought's dim flights smiles yes with sweet- 
est eyes, 
Filled with the visioned Future, and her mien 

Transfigured pours the light of Paradise, , 
Filling the soul with peace and living green, 

And all its fears and longings turn to bliss ; 
Like sudden gush of distant melodies. 

Or Eden-balm of loving heart's first kiss ; 
Grow all things plain, — no more we doubt or miss 

The loved and lost, from sufferings then made 
pure : 
Breaks light from higher worlds to lighten this, 

Which caught, enduring strengthens to endure ; 
Future seen present wakes our hearts to song. 
Their beatings whisper hope serene and strong. 



SONNETS. 211 



FATE OF THE GIFTED. 



The souls of loftiest range sublime, 
And finest frame of tenderness, 

Meet none to own them in their time, 
Their way apart, companionless ; 

(A mystery e'er misunderstood 

By men of grosser mould and mood ;) 
Proving this truth so desolate, 
The sentence stern of primal fate : 

Who highest walks must walk alone, 

Who knoweth most is most unknown, 
And still in suffering sad must learn, 
Not now the bliss for which they yearn ; 

Their meed for ages hence must wait. 

Whose insight shall appreciate. 



FRAGMENTS, 



How clear and swift the streamlet leapeth, 
Forth gushing from its mountain spring, 

But slow in dark dull mazes creepeth 
Anear its sea-goal lingering : 

So the bright stream of Life runs speeding, 
Swift dashing through its young bright day, 

But late with sluggish pace unheeding, 
In Time's vast deep to melt away. 



The autumn hills are black with rain, 

And desolate winds fill all the sky, 
And loud over wood and mountain and plain, 

Go sobbing with heart-breaks of sadness by : 

Like wandering spirits to whom doth come 
No hope but the flush of a dimmest yearning ; 

Now pausing with press of sorrow dumb. 

Now wailing for what hath no more returning ! 



FRAGMENTS. 213 



O'er the deep woods the sun dropped down, 
And the mountain's eastern side grew brown,- 
And he gazed as he went the wild hills o'er 
As sweet as in ages long before, 
When day by day the wanderer viewed 
Earth all one wide green solitude. 



Like a sun-burst on a beezy hill 

In a cloud-flying day of summer, 
Oft the mind some long gone thought will thrill, 
~ As sudden and sweet a comer. 



Each star that burned along the sky 
Still haunted me like a spectre's eye ; 
And every wind I heard to blow 
Muttered a threatening tone of woe. 



The nightingale is singing 
From the wild rose tree ; 

And the gentle hours are bringing 
Sweet — sad thoughts to me ! 



TO MY VERSES, 



Go forth, young travelers, and farewell ! we part 
Offspring of Song, sweet Truth and Fancy's dower ; 

Nurslings of love, sweet children of the heart. 
My dear companions many a varying hour ! 

Go bear your first fruits in the world's wide mart, 
And sow your seeds in willing hearts to flower — 

The seeds of Peace, Faith, Hope and loving Truth, 

To cheer the old, or light the soul of youth. 

Beauteous ye seemed to me in solitude. 

Though the world may not like your looks or store ; 

Toil on in trust, though strangers treat ye rude ; — 
Go take your rank with others gone before. 

Perchance some few your claims when kindly 
viewed. 
Will own, nor bear to spurn you from their door : 

Some friends ye'll find whilom your worth to see, — 

Methinks full well ye'll pay their charity ! 



215 



Go forth ! and be the good ye bring your fame ; 

Seek out mankind, the humble, poor and low, 
Greet kindly all, nor fear their slight nor blame ; 

As God's pure light and air all things o'erflow. 
Pr'thee, lisp ye to none your father's name ; — 

To judge ye fair none should your lineage know- 
Content to take his meed the good ye give, 
And die by them forgot, so ye remembered live. 



L'ENVOI. 



Thou wilt scarce once think upon me, 
Never miss thy brother gone, 

But I leave my blessing on thee. 
Bright and glorious, travel on ! 



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